


Never Eat Alone

by retroelectric



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Beverly is a hardcore gangster, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Older Man/Younger Man, Underage Character, Will is a spoilt brat, violent themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-19 04:31:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retroelectric/pseuds/retroelectric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham is fostered by Hannibal Lecter, an organised crime ringleader, after his father was murdered. When he turns eighteen, he is obliged to repay the man's favour by being involved in the web of crime and corruption, but he never expects the turn of events that reveal how truly distorted Hannibal Lecter's moral compass is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At the age of nine, Will witnesses a man being shot. He thinks it’s one of the most defining moments of his life. Young as he was, he doesn’t understand the implications when the tall, well-dressed guy with the hard, calculating eyes walks towards him and tucks his gun in his belt. He places a finger against his mouth in a shushing motion, and leaves.

Will runs up to his father’s apartment and hides in his room.

An hour later, the police come knocking on the door. Will’s father answers, and gets angry when they imply Will is a witness to a murder down the street. They want the young boy to identify the perpetrator. No one else would have come forward even if the entire street had witnessed the killing.

Will’s father has no choice. The officers make some threats to cut the process short, and his father has no patience for that.

“Come here,” he says angrily. Will flinches, unsure if the anger is directed towards him. He grabs Will’s hand and follows the officers to the line-up of men at the precinct. The tall, well-dressed man is amongst them, looking unruffled. He looks like a real tough guy.

He shakes his head when the officer asks him who the culprit was one-by-one. There was a moment of tense silence when he is brought in front of the man…and Will shakes his head again.

The officers, annoyed, tell Will and his father to leave. Will suckles his thumb as his father carries him in his arms away from the scene, but only after shooting the perpetrator an ugly look.

“You did good, saving a bad man,” he says, sounding unhappy.

Will doesn’t understand.

“Huh? I thought I did good? Did I do a bad thing, pops?” Will asks, sounding sad.

His father sighs. He bats Will’s thumb away from his mouth. “No. Y’see, son, in life you gotta do certain things in life that are not right. D’you understand what I’m saying?”

“Umm, no.”

“When you get older you’ll understand why. Just don’t get near his sort, son. Only bad things happen. Y’listen to me?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you very much.”

Will sighs into his father’s hug.

“I have a couple days off, son. Tomorrow we’ll drive out to the docks and go fishing, okay?”

“’Kay.”

 

* * *

 

Will is fixing his bicycle, hands dirty and kneeling in the grass, when he sees nice brown shoes step into view.

“Boy.”

Will looks up. It is the tall, well-dressed guy, dressed in a light blue suit and looking fancy. Will thinks he looks funny and out of place in the neighbourhood.

“My dad told me not to get near you,” Will says honestly.

The man laughs at his childishness.

The man has a thick accent Will can’t place when he speaks. “Listen to your dad. You’re a good kid. What’s your name?”

He answers hesitantly, “Will... William Graham.”

Hannibal smiles vaguely, and Will feels bad. He was still torn about what he had done.

“And I am Hannibal Lecter,” he says. Will doesn’t say anything. “Are you afraid of me?”

Will shakes his head.

“Good.”

“Can I ask you something?” Will asks timidly.

“Yes.”

“Why did you shoot that man?”

Lecter looks at him and smiles, “When you get older, you’ll understand.”

Will nods, shyly averting his eyes.

“How would you like to earn some money, Will?”

“Um, doing what?”

“Helping out at the restaurant.” Will knows which one. It’s the establishment his father avoids persistently, mainly because it is run by Lecter’s men. “Take people’s orders and bring them to the chef. Carry drinks. I’ll pay you fifty a day.”

Will’s eyes widen at the sum.

“Wow, um, that’s a lot.”

“You helped me. I’ll help you.”

“Kay, but, right now?” he asks, looking down at his work, “…I need to finish fixing my bike.”

Hannibal wraps his arm loosely around the boy’s shoulder and pats his arm. “Come by tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

Before Will knows it, he starts spending a lot of time with Hannibal. His father works at the garage and returns at night, and they are in-between babysitters. His father had always trusted him to take care of himself. Will now earns money that he keeps in his piggy bank, anxious to not let his father know.

Hannibal refers to Will as his ‘lucky charm’. That one time Hannibal asks Will to throw the dice for him and wins him $10,000, the man ruffles his hair affectionately and makes Will laugh.

Will starts to look forward to his time after school, having dreaded being lonely before at home. He grows up like this, surrounded with dangerous older men and women, Mr. Lecter, Jack, Alana, Jimmy, Brian, Beverly, Tobias and that one thorn, Franklyn. No one liked seeing his face around.  He starts to understand these were people in power, people who ran things in the town. People would call them gangsters, but that was debatable, because they kept order from the rest of the petty small gangs around town.

People in the neighbourhood were nicer to him after the shooting incident. Tom, the surly old shopkeeper, gives him a bag of peaches during a summer day, and Aunt Emma ruffles his hair and gives him his favourite pastry.  They all had ignored him before. It was an odd world he’d been thrown into, but one he was happy with.

His father doesn’t look happy a few weeks after the incident, as they’re eating dinner in the cramped dining room.

“I’ve been hearing things around town, son.”

“Yeah?” Will asks, chewing his steak.

“I heard the couple of wiseguys round the corner talk about you. They don’t call you my son, they call you Lecter’s boy now.” The man looks furious and calm, and Will swallowed, feeling chastised, “What have I told you, son?”

“But I hadn’t done anything bad, pops, I swear!”

“What have you been doing for Lecter?” he snaps.

“I-I just do a few errands for him at the restaurant, nothing big, I promise,” Will starts to sniffle.

“Doing what?”

“Help them get orders, clean tables, I-I don’t—”

“Now you listen to me, young man.” His father had grabbed his arm. It hurt. “When I say not to get around his sort, I mean it. I work at the garage to earn an honest living, so we can have steak at least once a week, and send you to school. I want you to be the brightest boy, go to college, and not mess around with that sort. They are bad people. You hear me? Nothing good’s gonna come out of you being around them.”

“That _hurts_ , pops—” Will sobbed.

“I’m trying to protect you, so _don’t_ disappoint me,” his father says in a hard tone, finally letting him go.

Will has no appetite after that, crying into his hands. He feels his father’s arms wrap around him, pulling him into his lap, warm and comforting. He wipes off his tears and snot with a napkin and kisses his forehead, smoothing back his hair.

“I’m sorry, Will, I’m just sad I can’t spend enough time with you, but I’ve always thought you were clever enough to do as I say.”

Will nods and chokes back his tears.

“I wish to god your mother were here,” the man says after a moment, “But she’s not. I was the idiot that made her leave. And that only means I got full responsibility to take care of you. Don’t want you to end up becoming a thug. Promise me you won’t. Oh, Will. Don’t cry anymore.”

That night his father reads him a bedtime story and tucks him into bed. Sleepily, Will wonders if Hannibal Lecter would ever do this for him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There are many other worse things to be,” Hannibal says airily.
> 
> “Like what?”
> 
> “Not being in control. Being weak and powerless.”

Hannibal enjoys that Will picks up playing poker so quickly, and ruffles his hair, calling him a smart boy. Will flourishes under the praise, but he finds himself unable to hide the truth from the man. He hesitates for a short moment and Hannibal gives him an unnerving smile that makes him spill.

“Pops knows what I’ve been doing for you,” Will says, the barest hint of pout on his face.

“What did he say?”

“Well, he wasn’t happy.” Hannibal looks at the bruise on Will’s arm, and looks away, “He’s still insistent on calling you and the rest bad people. Mostly you, though.”

“I won’t deny that,” the man answers calmly.

“Why doesn’t he understand? You’re not all bad. I know you kill people and stuff, but you’re nice to me. And I like that. I’m...I don’t like that he has to be gone for work all the time. I don’t have many friends, ‘cuz they’re all afraid of me now, and you’re one of my only friends,” Will says childishly, looking at his cards with a less than perfect poker face. The boy still has time to learn.

“Will, your father is right. He cares a lot for you, and I’m not going to force you to choose between me and him. Do you understand me?” Hannibal says, “Family is important, boy. You could choose to leave me right now, to please your father, with no consequences.”

“Really?” Will points out after a while, “But you’re lying, aren’t you?”

The man smiles affectionately.

“C’mon, tell me what else you have to say about that,” Will challenges, demanding. “Be honest with me.”

“I’ll just be sad that my boy will be out of reach.”

“That’s it? You’ll just be _sad_?”

“I just thought I had longer to have you around, that’s all.”

“You can have me around,” Will replies nonchalantly, foolishly, “You could order me to stay, and I will.”

Hannibal considers it.

“Then I order you to stay,” he says, “And hide your tracks from your father better. You know how to do that. I would miss you terribly if you weren’t with me. And understand this, Will. When you stay, know that the circumstances that surround you would get dangerous, and if you want out, now’s the time. Don’t make me believe that you’ll be my boy forever, when you can’t. I know you’re young, but you’re certainly not above understanding this.”

Will considers it after putting down his cards.

Sometimes Will’s mind worked in surprising ways, faster than anyone else his age. It was how he maintains good grades that make his father proud. It was how he devoured books that weren’t meant for a boy his age. It was how he knew not to rat out on Hannibal, how to be honest with the man about what his father said, and how he could pick up poker like a fish took to water.

Everyone else treats him like a child, but Hannibal has never done that. He enjoys how refreshing it was to be treated like an equal.

“You’re right. S’fine, old man. I’ll be your boy. I understand the risks,” Will says, smiling at him cheekily, like he truly _understands_ , but Hannibal holds in himself a bit of doubt. “And I won’t regret this even fifty years from now.”

 

* * *

 

Time passes quickly, and with each birthday, he spends with his father at the garage, and afterwards with Hannibal and he gets treated to good food and a large sum of money as a gift. Now that everyone knew who he was, Lecter’s boy, he held no fear.

Will knows well enough not to distance himself from his own father, having a need to be filial, despite the man being stern but kind. To protect himself, he asks Lecter to tell his men to keep quiet about Will’s involvement with him, to keep his own father in the dark.

It was an arrangement that works well, until he turns thirteen. Will has never learned pain to its true effect until he hears news from a police officer that his father had been shot to death by a small time thug in a mugging incident.

Will feels his heart drop. Somehow, he remembers the last thing his father says to him, “Do good, son.” He remembers the man’s warm, callous touch.

Hannibal Lecter was present when they deliver the news. The man, normally stoic, hugs him and lets him cry into his immaculate suit.

“I’ll take him,” the man says, “Price, help me pack up the kid’s things. Can’t let him stay here without anyone to take care of him.”

His little heart wrenches in pain. He throws a tantrum.

“I want pops back!” he screams, “I d-didn’t give him permission to _die_!”

“I know, son,” he soothes, patting his small back, “I know. I can’t help you get him back, but I’ll help you in anything else.”

“ _Don’t call me that!_ S’what—s’what he calls me,” he half-yells brokenly.

“Will. Shh, shh,” Hannibal, for the first time, looks affected by Will’s emotional outburst, has a few tears in his eyes, “I’ll help you honour your father, boy. It’s the least I can do.”

The man says some other comforting things, hands him his silk handkerchief to cry into. Will’s suddenly too tired to get angry and sad, and cries quietly to sleep in Hannibal’s arms.

 

* * *

 

He’s old enough to understand that Hannibal Lecter and his gangsters were the ones helping Will arrange his father’s funeral. Will doesn’t have any family, but he hadn’t had to worry. The man gets granted guardianship over Will after pulling some strings, and Will knows, as he stands at his father’s grave being buried, that he owes the man a lot.

He’s still sad a week later. A month later. He doesn’t go back to school yet, and Hannibal lets him. The man has always understood him in a different way that Will’s father had, and in the sanctuary of the lavish home he then lives in, he sees more than a boy his age should.

It’s further cemented in him that his late father was right. Hannibal Lecter wasn’t a good man, but he’s always known. He’s careful to notice now. He always overhears plans for drug trafficking, a prostitution ring, and stories of how Beverly bribes cops to ensure a smooth delivery. Jack Crawford, Lecter’s right hand man, was a brutal man. It is evident in the way his lips snarl when he speaks about his next conquest to eradicate the small-time gangs popping around the city, speaking about them like they were vermin. He was a bit of a show-off but if Lecter minds, he doesn’t say a thing about it.

It was a rather odd thing to be thrown into. Hannibal Lecter, a calm force in the midst of it all, still as fatherly and kind to him as ever, sits him down one day during lunch.

The man corrects his posture, tells him not to have his elbows on the table. He tells him which cutlery to use, to wipe his mouth after every meal. How to light and hold a cigarette, even if Will hadn’t started smoking yet.

“I had the man taken care of, Will,” Hannibal says after a moment, “The man who killed your father. He is dead now.”

Will doesn’t know how to respond. He hesitates before putting the piece of pork loin in his mouth.

“I am going to explain a concept to you, Will, of what I do. Ours is a finely-crafted balanced system of keeping outsiders out of our town, and work hand-in-hand with the law enforcement. The cops can deny all they want, but we’re a part of their web. Nothing we do is corrupt because it is what the politicians want. We keep everything in check. As long as my people are here, we keep the other predators at bay, and it is just unfortunate that your father was a victim of them before we could do anything about it.”

“So by being a bigger bad person, you keep the others out, huh? S’that what you’re saying?”

“In simpler terms, yes.”

“This world is complicated,” Will says.

“In time, you’ll be part of it.”

Will knows what’s been done to his late father. Hannibal has warned him before, and if he was in a grey area before, he wasn’t in it now. The small time gangs that threaten to overrun the city need to be disposed of, and his belief was further strengthened with his own loss.

“You don’t feel bad for doing it?”

“There are many other worse things to be,” Hannibal says airily.

“Like what?”

“Not being in control. Being weak and powerless.” Hannibal takes a sip of his wine, “I’ve given you some time for mourning. But next week, I want you to go back to school and continue your studies. I want you to grow up to be more than what I can be. I’m sure your father would have wanted that.”

With a small lump in his throat, Will nods, because Hannibal was right.

 

* * *

 

Beverly was the one sent to be Will’s bodyguard, and it was a position that Hannibal doesn’t seem to take lightly. He was a busy man, and it makes Will miss him but Beverly was there for company. He had chosen well, however.

She looks like an ordinary woman, soft and pretty, until one gets to know her. She was fierce and capable enough on her own, killer with firearms and strong beyond how she looks like.

Her strength gets tested when a couple of small time gang members catcall her while she’s holding his hand walking him back from school.

“I’m with a fuckin’ kid, and they’re testing my patience,” she growls beneath her breath. Will hears it. He doesn’t know what to do in this situation.

They say several unsavoury things about her curvaceous figure, and her patience gets tested, badly. She snaps when they mention how much of a whore she looks in her skirt, how much they would pay for her.

“Will, look the other way,” she snarls.

Will doesn’t.

He watches in abject horror as she shoots the three thugs, quickly and efficiently with dead, precise calm, each in the head and heart before grabbing Will’s hand and running for it. People scream and disperse at the sudden commotion. She makes quick phone calls for backup, for Price and Zeller.

In ten minutes, a car raced down the street for them. Zeller and Price were inside, and they quickly climb in before the rest of the gang members would come after them.

Will quivers in fear, having witnessed first-degree murder in front of his face for the second time.

“Always wanted a fuckin’ reason to carve them,” Beverly says in poorly concealed anger still, and after a while, says, “Sorry, Will. Ignore I said the f-word twice, okay?”

“Y-You’re scaring me right now,” Will says, still shaking.

“Sorry, sorry, poor boy,” she exhales out her anger and pulls the boy towards her and hugs him close. She runs her fingers in his soft curls, and Will smells something like gas lingering in her fingers. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Why did you kill them?” he asks her, still innocent, despite everything.

“They can’t treat a woman like that,” she says resolutely, “They’re past being taught lessons in being polite. Men think they’re entitled to say what they like to women, when they can’t survive without us.”

“Not all men,” Price laughs, looking back to look at Will with a suggestive grin.

“Shut up, Jimmy. I’m trying to make a point.”

Will liked Beverly, she didn’t say things like ‘You’ll understand when you’re older.’ He likes Price too, flamboyant as he was, he was a good man. Zeller was silent on the drive back.

“My dad said it was hard to live without my mom.”

“Oh, Will.” Beverly gives him a sober smile after a while, and kisses the boy’s forehead.

Will learns a lesson that day from Beverly, and never forgets it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how much I love Beverly. Don't worry, I won't kill off any major characters. Beverly is a major character. QUEEN OF MY HEART.


	3. Chapter 3

The gangsters, crass as they were in their methods of crime, all taught Will something.

Beverly teaches him respect for others. She waits until he was old enough to not require a bodyguard then teaches him how to use firearms. Alana teaches him how to read and toy with dangerous people, and yet she was always so kind to him. Jack teaches him how to manipulate people with words and intimidation. He lets him into his boxing club, and he learns to build himself up there. Eventually, he got rid of his skinny body and grew into the wiry, hard body of a young man. Price and Zeller teach him about drugs and alcohol. He learns not to meddle with drug use after seeing firsthand how it could send someone down the downward spiral of addiction.

Tobias and Franklyn were snakes and Will doesn’t really like them being around them. Franklyn gives him an impression of someone speaking like he has big shoes to fill, and Tobias creeps him out. He swears if he has any say in the future, he’ll be the one to end them first.

And yet, in their own little way, they form a family around Will. It was the best he could have after his father’s death. He feels lucky to be given another chance, him, once a poor boy with a father taken away from him too soon.

Will realises that wealth and power were being groomed to be handed to him by Hannibal Lecter, and he was very used by then to be called Lecter’s boy. He knew that even early on, that he was prepared to take such a responsibility. When Hannibal looks at him, there was tenderness to his eyes like he was proud of Will and it sends a flutter to his chest that he makes the man happy.

When he turns sixteen, he has a growth spurt that makes him almost as tall as Hannibal. He has grown into a more confident version of himself. He has a future ahead, and despite what his late father might have thought, he was indebted to Hannibal Lecter now and had plenty to live up to.

That day he wakes up early. Before going to school, he goes down to the garden and finds Hannibal watering the plants before bending down to pull out some weeds, and Will smiles amusedly at the sight.

“Aren’t you going to greet me?” Hannibal says, without turning around.

“Good morning, old man.” Will laughs and walks towards the man, kissing his cheek. Hannibal pulls off his gardening glove and ruffles Will’s hair.

“You’re up early today. I’m almost tempted to make you breakfast.”

“Yep, I woke up to take advantage of your kind generosity.”

“Cheeky boy.” After a while of surveying his garden, he says, “Help me water the plants over the far corner, Will.”

He does it obediently. When Hannibal comes over, he purposely sprays the watering hose into his chest. Will laughs boyishly at the look of surprise on the man’s face.

“Alright, _fine,_ I deserve it too,” and sprays the water into his own face. His curls get soaked and hang in his face wetly, prettily, and when he licks his pink lips, he’s suddenly fully aware of where Hannibal’s eyes were looking.

Will knows by then the difference between being looked upon with the look of adoration and the look of lust. He _swallows_.

Yet he asks teasingly, and self-consciously, “What are you looking at, huh?”

“You.”

The man looks faintly smug when Will has to look away, embarrassed all of a sudden.

“Don’t say weird things,” he pouts.

“Oh, Will.” The man leans in to wipe his wet hair out of his face, cupping his smooth jaw. Will starts blushing terribly, and Hannibal notices, as he always does, though he was smooth and stoic all the same. “Dry off and I’ll make breakfast.”

Will scampers off, and Hannibal simply watches him thoughtfully. His boy really never ceased to amaze him. He knows Will has grown practically under his nose, but he’d really been oblivious.

He’s gotten enticing and he hasn’t noticed it.

 

* * *

 

 

When Hannibal returns home late at night, he sees Will standing at the balcony, making a soft, lonely looking picture. His heart aches a little for him.

The boy was smoking there, alone, and he seems so lost in thought that he doesn’t hear Hannibal approaching. The man quietly wraps his arms around Will’s slender waist, wrapping around him comfortably and Will seems mildly surprised at his forwardness, but the boy has learnt to hide it well.

“What are you doing, old man?” Will whispers, taking a slow drag of his cigarette.

“You looked lonely.”

“I wasn’t waiting up for you,” the boy responds. He places the cigarette between Hannibal’s mouth and watches him inhale.

“Of course you weren’t.”

“You aren’t supposed to be holding me like this, you know.”

“Why not?”

“’Cuz you’re supposed to be my guardian,” the boy murmurs, “Not my lover.”

Hannibal makes a non-committal sound, and kisses the gentle sloping curve of Will’s neck.

“What would Jack think, old man?” he teases Hannibal, moving into the embrace, tilting his head back submissively. His breath stuttered in his throat.

Hannibal had always been a handsome man. He doesn’t know how to tread around him now that he was blatantly showing interest in Will, so he plays along with the man’s seduction.

“I don’t give a damn what he thinks.”

“D’you just want me ‘cuz I’m your little boy all grown up, or ‘cuz you really love me, huh?”

Hannibal gets distracted. He presses hot kisses over the nape of his neck, that gradually grow hungry, lapping and sucking like he wanted to mark him his.

He turns him around roughly, and meets Will’s lips in a fiery kiss. He nips and sucks over his bottom lip, and Will makes an adorable noise, like he was _innocent_ , like he was new to it, even though he knew his boy certainly wasn’t. Will kisses sweetly and hotly like he has something to prove. He bites back when Hannibal does.

He stumbles on his thoughts before he could collect enough coherence for a response.

“I’ve always loved you, Will, now it’s just starting to become a different kind of love.”

“M’not legal yet,” Will teases. He takes back the cigarette from the man’s fingers, wrapping his pink, kiss-tender lips around the filter, “You’re going to have to hold out for a couple more years.”

“Do I?” There was a hint of dominance in his tone, which made Will falter.

“Uhuh. Take me out on a date first,” he whispers, eventually, “M’going to bed now.”

Will turns around in his arms and kisses Hannibal’s cheek, and leaves.

 

* * *

 

 

Will was kept busy with his school and boxing training, growing up into the young man he was while Hannibal watches from a distance.

Every touch he gives Will was now fuelled with passion, one that his boy was receptive to and seemed almost frustrated that Hannibal wasn’t giving in. He’s had a lifetime of training for patience. He would wait.

It doesn’t please him when Will starts bringing home girls and couple of boys. Jack notices his reckless, teenage behaviour, and laughs it off and calls it the fancy of young boys, but Hannibal knows what’s at play.

Will was trying to make him _jealous_.

He was old enough to understand what sort of impact his actions have while a stoic, cruel man like Hannibal watches on. He even brings home a young man several years older than him named Tony, and while dressed in just his boxers and t-shirt, indecently kisses the boy goodbye at the door step. It was obvious they had sex, Will reeked of it. Basked in it like he was proud of having been fucked.

Hannibal can tell. His sense of smell had always been sharp.

He made such a lovely picture, tough little body with his sinewy arms wrapped around the larger young man’s shoulders. His curls were messy from sex and his gorgeous mouth, pinked with kisses teased at the young man’s mouth, and Hannibal watches from the dining room, and catches Will’s eye.

The insolent boy smiles at Hannibal and pulls away, waving at the man after the young man disperses.

Will makes his way to the dining room for breakfast. He smiles at Hannibal, looking content and smug. Hannibal looks upon it with annoyance.

“Are you seeing that boy?”

“No, he’s just a friend,” Will says, yawning without closing his mouth.

“Do you normally kiss your friends like that?”

“What? No. Go away,” Will snaps.

“How old is he?”

Will doesn’t want to answer. He looks at Hannibal’s stern look, and sighs, “Twenty-five.”

“He’s old enough that I can report him for having sex with a minor,” Hannibal says.

“You _touched_ me,” Will says indignantly. “You put yourself in jail too, old man.”

Hannibal fixes him with a burning look.

“Don’t threaten me.”

“You think because you’re my guardian you can dictate my life? I’ve done everything you wanted done, and when it comes to my body, you want to control _that_ too?” Will says furiously, “I’m not stupid, Hannibal. I know what you’re doing, grooming me to be your boy, but I won’t be yours forever. Not unless you prove it to me you’re _worthy_.”

“I’m going out,” Will says in finality, getting up and about to stomp out when Hannibal grabs his arm fiercely.

“Don’t you dare leave me,” he says roughly, “Not unless you apologise.”

“You apologise!”

“I helped you when your father died as a favour,” Hannibal says, “Now do me a favour and stop trying to be so petty about this.”

“What, you think I’m doing this to make you _jealous_? You think highly of yourself, don’t you? Other boys my age do it too, stop trying to make everything about yourself- _mpgh_!”

Will was cut off by a rough kiss to his lips. He was shocked enough by that contact that he let himself be kissed, and he was insolent enough, petulant enough to bite Hannibal’s bottom lip in response.

The man doesn’t seem deterred. He kisses back harder, and bites Will’s bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

Will’s eyes _waters_. He claws at the man’s shoulders before relenting, the kiss so rough, but he couldn’t help but melt for it.

Hannibal ruins him.

“That _hurts_ ,” the boy whimpers as Hannibal sucks over his bottom lip to draw as much blood out.

“Shh,” Hannibal soothes him, “I’m sorry. But you shouldn’t ever do that. You belong to me, don’t you?”

Will glares.

“...Fuck off.”

Hannibal grips at his wrist bruisingly, making Will wince. Will wants to glare at him, but the toxic look in Hannibal’s eye makes him startle.

“Don’t be rude, Will.”

“You won’t get to fuck me so easily, old man,” Will mutters.

Hannibal kisses the insolence from his mouth again, biting down on his tongue, making Will yelp.

“Ow! Ah--y-yeah, just don’t be so rough, _god_ -”

“Tell me.”

“Don’t hurt me,” Will pleads after a while, “I won’t see him again. I belong to you.”

Hannibal finally smiles at his admission. He cups Will’s face and kisses his bruises adoringly, apologising with each caress of his lips against his skin and lets him go.

“Sleep with me tonight, Will.”

“’Kay, but don’t try anything funny,” Will responds petulantly after a while, wanting to get the last say, letting himself be pulled up.

Hannibal keeps his promise. He just presses Will onto his back in his bed and kisses him some more, then wraps a possessive arm around him in an embrace, and eventually, they fall asleep like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be underage Will being fucked hard in the next chapter so look out for that ;)


	4. Chapter 4

When he wakes up, he notices Hannibal lounging in bed smoking a cigarette and reading some papers. It looks important enough that Hannibal doesn’t notice him awake until he stirs and sits up, and Hannibal offers him a warm smile, but removes his gaze after a while to continue reading.

“What are you doing?” Will asks.

“Nothing particularly important.” Will doesn’t buy it.

He removes his t-shirt and carelessly tosses them on the floor. Hannibal had always been a stickler for neatness, and his eyes follow it.

“Looks important enough to me,” Will challenges, “You aren’t looking at me, like you always are.”

“Mhm.”

Will huffs at Hannibal’s distraction and gets out of bed, brushing his teeth and taking a shower. When he’s clean and dripping wet, with just a towel around his slender hips, he gets frustrated that Hannibal doesn’t even spare a glance at him, when he’s all but made a point that Will belonged to him. He’d bruised him with kisses and his rough hands, but it looked like it wasn’t enough.

Will doesn’t do well with being ignored, so he takes the papers out of Hannibal’s hands, and straddles Hannibal’s lap.

“Don’t ignore me,” he says, kissing Hannibal’s mouth harshly. It quickly devolves into pure heat, and Hannibal reacts to Will’s overly insistent mouth and tongue and he bites him again for his constant insolence, fingers sliding through his damp curls.

Hannibal appears amused, smug, when Will pulls away, his towel having fallen off with his squirming.

“You’re so frustrating,” Will complains, “You made me say all those things last night, and you haven’t acted upon it. Don’t make me say things like that if you don’t mean it, old man!”

“What would you have me do?”

Hannibal’s fingers move over his small hips, and Will’s hips move into the bare contact.

“I dunno,” Will says, “Anything.”

Hannibal smiles.

“Are you this submissive with all the boys and girls you sleep with, Will?”

Will looks away, red with embarrassment, “N-No.”

“How are you like when you’re with them?”

“I—I just, I dunno, it depends on what they like.”

“Not what you like, dear Will?”

It was amusing to watch Will get embarrassed with the subject when it was what Will wanted.

Hannibal pinches his nipples gently. He sucks on them, and Will jolts in pleasure, grasping onto Hannibal’s hair. Will’s young cock twitches.

“Do you go down on girls?”

His voice gets all high pitched, “Uhuh.”

Hannibal smiles against the boy’s skin in his exploration of his taut little body, “Do you like sucking cock, Will?”

Will makes a low whining noise, and he sounded so reluctant to answer Hannibal.

“Answer me, darling boy.”

“Y-Yeah, oh, please do something to me, _please_ —”

“Shh.” Hannibal quiets him. He lifts him up slightly and pushes him down on the bed on his back, looming over him, still dressed in a pair of slacks and shirt while Will was beneath him naked, in a show of dominance.

“I’ve noticed your preference for boys,” he tells him, kissing his stomach. The boy was quivering, “You look at them longer.”

“Nhgh, _s-shut up_ , I’m not gay!” Will denies.

“Do you think it’s wrong, Will?”

“Y-Yeah, no— _I don’t know_.”

“You think I haven’t heard,” Hannibal growls, “I’m not always gone. When I’m here when you think you’re alone with your boys and girls, I hear your little fuck-noises from your door.”

Will covers his face in embarrassment, makes a little sobbing noise.

His cock was already hard, leaking precum over his tummy, and Hannibal watches smugly. He hadn’t even touched his boy yet.

“You like letting them fuck your pretty, insolent mouth, don’t you? You like choking on it,” he continues, spreading Will’s legs and filthily kissing his thighs, “You like getting spread open like a girl and fucked into.”

“F-Fuck, you’re so embarrassing,” Will mumbles, his small hips lifting up a little like he was overly eager.

Hannibal pushes him down into the bed, watching his boy’s flushed face. He was blushing all the way to his neck.

He looked so innocent and it was so lovely to watch.

“Do you let them cum inside you, Will?”

Will makes a small, mortified noise.

“Do you?”

“N-No.”

“Good.” Hannibal responds with another harsh, bruising kiss, his hands moving forgivingly over the boy’s cock and jerks him off a little, cupping his balls, and he growls, possessive and harsh, “Because when I fuck you, I’ll cum inside you, Will. I’ll breed you so much.”

Will makes a small choked noise, “D-Don’t say that--”

“I’ll make you want,” Hannibal half-snarls. His big fingers rub against his little hole, puckered up tight when he touches him. The man lifts up his small hips and press kisses over his inner thighs and licks lewdly over his hole, making the boy jerk his hips and sob adorably.

“ _Nooo_ ,” he whines, sounding embarrassed. He’s had a lot of sex, but the young men he sleeps with has never done anything like lick his hole. Hannibal seems to know it. He hushes him, and begins to eat him out. He sticks his tongue inside Will and licks him, fucks him with his tongue, and it was filthy and _hot_ , but his body was set ablaze with want.

The boy’s toes curl helplessly, his dick twitching and spurting precome all over himself.

“Tell me to fuck you, Will.”

Will’s body was twitching with pleasure, desperate for his release. He’s still too shy to say it, so he covers his face again.

“Will,” he says again.

“I don’t wanna say it,” he whimpers, heels digging into the mattress, cock bobbing against his tummy.

“Why not?”

“I feel like a kid when you ask me to say things.”

“You are my boy,” Hannibal tells him, kissing his pouting mouth. “You’ll always be mine, won’t you? Go on, tell me.”

“Kay,” he huffs, still blushing. He scolds Hannibal, “Gods, you’re so embarrassing!”

His lips quirk up and bites down gently at Will’s sore nipple.

“Oww, ah, f-fuck,” he whimpers, saying haltingly, “Yeah, I’ll say it, _ungh_ , w-want you to fuck me, please?”

“Good boy.”

The praise makes his toes curl.

Hannibal reaches for the tube of lubricant and the sound of the fluid pushed out was wet. His big, thick fingers push inside his body slickly. Will tenses up despite being eaten out, and it drives Hannibal to be maddened with lust.

His boy was gorgeous, looking like a debauched, lewd fantasy spread beneath him.

“You’re so lovely,” he tells Will, sounding unravelled, “Aren’t you?”

Will was too choked up to answer, biting down on his kiss-swollen lips. It was beautiful. Hannibal is half-tempted to push his pretty mouth on his cock and ride into his throat, but he doesn’t. He curls his big fingers inside him, fucks in, _in_ , until Will shrieks and wails.

His cock throbs like he’s about to come, and Hannibal won’t have that. He clamps his hand around the base of the boy’s cock tight enough so Will doesn’t, and he makes a low, pitiful noise.

“That hurts,” he whimpers again, knowing he sounds much like a child that Hannibal makes him feel.

Hannibal shushes him with a tender kiss. He slicks his cock up, and fucks in.

Will makes a delicious noise and wraps his arms around Hannibal’s neck, making breathy, warm panting sounds against his skin.

Hannibal was tender at first, letting Will get used to the girth of his long, thick cock. He was in balls deep which made Will clench on him, making little whining noises and grip onto Hannibal’s shoulders. The man bites his neck, and Will yelps.

“Idiot,” he scolded, panting adorably, “People are gonna see that.”

Hannibal laughs. “They’ll just think you’ve been fucking one of your boys again.”

Will doesn’t get a chance to bite back a reply when Hannibal growls and starts fucking into him in earnest. He grips Will’s small hips and gets in so deep it’s almost dizzying, and he became a pliant, writhing mess beneath the older man.

“Nhgh, oh _, f-fuck_ —you were really jealous I was with them, huh?”

Will was smiling and dishevelled-looking, looking delicious while being ridden into. Hannibal watches him admiringly and kisses his insolent mouth, giving him several rough thrusts which had him keening and grabbing at Hannibal for anchor.

“What if I was?” The man taunts him.

“I dunno—oh! _Hannibal_ —” he mouths helplessly at Hannibal’s shoulder.

“You like being owned, don’t you?”

Will could only manage a whimper. He doesn’t really like the smugness in Hannibal’s tone, so he clenches around the man’s cock and rolls his hips down, childishly wanting to make Hannibal react.

The man does. He lifted his small bum and placed a pillow for leverage. He grips Will’s small hips and fucks into the boy roughly for being insolent.

He knows when that has the reaction he wants. Will, getting the man’s big cock fucking into his prostate, squirms and kicks a little, hides his face in Hannibal’s neck after a while, his face flush with embarrassment and need.

“Are you—oh, AH—always this rough with everyone you fuck, huh?” Will asks, red-faced but still taunting in between his little noises.

“Not everyone’s like you,” Hannibal says, kissing and sucking another bruise on his boy’s neck. He’s maddened, incensed, snarls, “You’ve got such a tight little boy cunt. I’ll need to fuck that out of you.”

“ _Fuck_ —” Will gasps, high pitched.

He hasn’t heard Hannibal swear so much in front of him. If anything, he was all for politeness, and Will is starting to truly see the man unrestrained. Hannibal was all over him, his scent making him heady with desire, the man’s inelegant grunts in his ear, his large, rough hands manhandling and bruising and pleasuring him, his cock buried inside him, fucking into him, like he was--

Like he _wanted_ Will to hear how much he was undoing him.

Will was touching himself, gripping at his own sac and milking his cock with his small fist. He came all over himself, his vision whiting out and Hannibal watched him.

Will makes little whimpery noises when Hannibal doesn’t stop. He gets rougher, more animalistic.

“I’ll cum in you so much, you’ll feel it dripping out when I’m done with you,” he snarls.

Hannibal kisses his mouth roughly again, his fingers grazing his nipples and pinching at them. Will trembles, the stimulation too much.

“You’re still hard,” he says again, “Like the horny little boy you are. You’re not like this for anyone else, are you?”

“S-Shut up, old man-!”

“You came so fast,” Hannibal taunts him, and Will wants to cover his face again, his bravado gone missing in front of Hannibal’s overly dominant behaviour, “Did you get so hot because it was _me_ fucking you? Your own foster father?”

Will’s eyes widened at the lewd words and he _squirms_ , because it sends a twitch to his dick again.

“Don’t fucking say that!”

“It’s not what your little boy cunt tells me,” the man says, in his raspy tone. He caresses Will’s jaw and kisses it lovingly, “Getting all tight around my cock again.”

Will was so mortified. Tears leak from the corner of his eye, overwhelmed and completely aroused, at the full impact he’d realised of what he instigated. Gods, and Hannibal had to point it out, their _relationship_ , and how terrible it was.

He couldn’t help himself. He hasn’t felt this good before.

This _filthy_.

His thighs trembled. His cock started leaking again, and Hannibal was relentless. He kept fucking into him like he had no reason to stop and he only paused for a moment to hoist Will onto his hands and knees, pushing his cock in deep again, making Will scream.

“AH! F-Fuck!”

The man pounded into him, making him feel dizzy. It was like he was getting fucked for the first time, clawing at the pillow and bedsheets, whimpering and pushing his small hips back. Hannibal parts his little cheeks and Will doesn’t feel embarrassed anymore, too dazed by how hungry the man really was for him.

“Ngh, nh, HN—”

Hannibal kisses the nape of his neck and holds him close, his chest pressing against Will’s back.

“That’s my good boy,” he says after a while, voice still roughened.

Will shivers. He feels like he was being talked to like he was a kid, like he was some pet.

He lets out a little scream when Hannibal jacks him off. When he feels Will come, his muscles tightening, he fucks in roughly for a couple more thrusts and spills inside thick and hot, making Will’s ears burn.

He hasn’t felt a man’s come in him before.

He pants hard when Hannibal pulls out of him and lets go. When Will lies down on his back again, he rubs at his own puffy, sore hole and whimpers. He feels the hot stickiness drip over his thighs.

“You’re such a dirty old man,” Will mumbles after a while.

Will bites his lips, and doesn’t really know how to react as he catches his breath. He feels Hannibal move behind him and press kisses over his face, and then his mouth. The man was kissing him with his tongue, and Will responds sleepily.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Hannibal says.

“You didn’t hurt me.”

Will doesn’t stop him when Hannibal sits him on his lap half an hour later, and makes his boy ride his cock. He tells him how beautiful Will looks, instead of the crass, dirty things he’d said to Will earlier.

Will doesn’t tell him how much he likes that. He suspects he doesn’t need to.


	5. Chapter 5

When they finally pull away from each other, it’s nearly evening, and it’s because Hannibal tells Will he has to go to work. Will puts on the most spectacular pout. The man kisses him for a full minute and goes to take a shower while Will naps.

He’s too tired to watch Hannibal dress and leave. He knows Hannibal won’t come back until the next day, leaving him alone, as always.

He sleeps off his sexual fatigue and wakes up sore and aching everywhere. He takes advantage of Hannibal’s bath and then changes the soiled sheets himself. He goes downstairs, before realising the picture he makes when he looks at himself in the mirror in the living room.

There are so many bruises on his skin, especially on his neck. Hannibal had wanted to mark him blatantly.

The man is stupidly possessive. Will understands his need to mark him, but he hadn’t realised how much he would bruise under Hannibal’s strong, cruel hands.

He doesn’t want to go to school and have people ask him who did that to him, so he just dresses and drives around town. He goes to see Beverly at her home, knocking on her door, scuffing his shoes against the ground like a kid.

“Will?” She sounds pleasantly surprised when she opens the door, “Come in.”

“You aren’t in school,” she points out, and makes a coffee for them both, “You’ve been a busy young man, haven’t you? Those things on your neck.”

She smiles at him and lifts an eyebrow, telling him that she knows. He blushes for a moment and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Not really,” he lies.

Beverly doesn’t push on. He likes that about her. He sits down and watches her brew coffee. “Does Hannibal know you’ve taken a day off?” she asks mildly.

“Yeah.”

“’Cause you sort of are my responsibility, too, you know.”

“I know.”

Will drinks the coffee after adding a splash of cream and a little too much sugar. He loves her coffee, and tells her it tastes better than Hannibal’s. She smiles.

“Do you remember that time when I was thirteen and you killed those thugs in front of me?”

“Yes.”

“I was so afraid back then,” he says, “Not even Hannibal showed how violent he was in front of my face. Except for that one time I was nine, but I was just an accidental witness.”

Beverly gives him a small, apologetic smile. He feels her warm hand placed on his.

“Do you regret that?”

“I dunno. I don’t even know how my life would be if my dad hadn’t died and he hadn’t taken me in. I probably would’ve been an angry young man. What I remember of my old life was pretty boring and safe. I wouldn’t have liked that at my age.” He gives a dark chuckle, “If life had been normal for me, I would’ve ended up being a killer or something, just to keep me from being bored.”

“Why do you say that?”

“’Cuz sometimes I see too much,” he says to her, “I didn’t noticed before, but I do now. Alana taught me to read people, but I feel like...I have elevated it to an art form. I know I wasn’t born with empathy, but Alana has this talent, hasn’t she? She used to be a psychiatrist, or something. A really good one. Maybe she left it to get into something more interesting like organised crime. Or for _someone_ ,” Will smiles humourlessly, and continues.

“Sometimes, when I watch bad people, I can read their intent and what they will do next. I suspect if they left a crime scene, I’ll be able to retrace their steps and deduce who they are. I think I would have let that get to my head, absorb too much. Either that or just...kill for fun, even though I would’ve been a little scaredy cat at the beginning.”

Beverly still doesn’t judge him. He enjoys that, being able to speak his mind freely to her without consequences. “We’re all bad people, Will,” she says calmly.

“I know that. I know that because you’re a criminal and that doesn’t make you an inherently bad person in my eyes. You are one of the best people I know, Beverly. You killed them back then, because they were dehumanising you as a woman. I understand that. I understand even more that you would kill because Hannibal told you to. You're doing it out of loyalty for him.”

She nods at his understanding.

She doesn’t even mention anything about his thoughts about being a killer, because she was one herself. She wasn’t about to advise him against or for it.

“You’re his boy,” she tells Will, “You’ll be expected to follow in his footsteps. He’s like your father now. He’s never had any children.”

“I know. I don’t have a choice to leave, I made it myself.”

“You’re smart, Will. You could use that talent of yours to make yourself as good as Hannibal is.”

“Good?” Will says, frowning a little, stirring at his coffee, “My dad said to me before that I did a good thing for a bad man. He told me not to mix with Lecter’s lot, but I know what an agreement is, Bev. I signed a little contract with Hannibal, I said to him I’ll be his, and he doesn’t forget anything. He wouldn’t enjoy it if I backed away from this life after I finished high school or something, would he? He’d just think I was an ungrateful brat. I dunno. He’s volatile,” Will says, “It doesn’t take a genius to see it. He’s attached to the idea of me. He might even do something bad to keep me.”

Beverly could see it too, from the iron grip Hannibal seems to have on Will for most of his young life.

“Oh, Will.”

Will doesn’t say anything. He looks down at the warm brown liquid.

“If you’re ever reluctant and want a way out,” Beverly tells him, “You can always tell me. I’ll arrange something for you.”

“Hannibal will find out.”

“I’m too fond of you to care. I’d like you to be happy.”

Will smiles. He gets up to hug her, burying his face in her dark locks.

“I’ve always wanted to ask you this, but are you happy, Will?”

He takes a moment to answer.

“Sometimes. On occasion. Sometimes I’m not. I wish my father was still alive all the time. He was a kind man.”

Will sits down again, running a hand through his curls. He thought that he was past feeling sad about his father’s death, but he truly wasn’t.

Beverly takes his silence and asks him the question that has been plaguing her mind.

“...Has Hannibal done something to you, Will?”

“No,” he manages, “He loves me. Remember?”

“Well, you don’t normally stop by my house unless you need a ride,” she reminds.

“I just haven’t seen you in a week,” he laughs, being honest, “I missed you. I needed someone to talk about...about what I have going for me. My future. I have two years ahead before I turn into an adult in the legal system. That’s all. Needed to clear my head. Can I smoke?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” She gets up to take the ashtray and puts it on the table in front of him.

For a moment, Will doesn’t think of Beverly as the dangerous woman she was, merely as a companion who understood him better, sometimes, he thought, than Hannibal would. He loves her for that. She doesn’t say anything as he lingers in her home for longer than usual, lounging in front of the television with her, eating the food that she makes, and the food was delicious in its own way.

When he returns home, it’s late, and his mind is clear at last. He’s figured out that no matter how trapped he feels, he has other alternatives, and that he was never truly alone. He makes a mental note to buy something nice for Beverly in the future.

Hannibal’s sitting in the living room, dressed down and talking to Jack. The two stop talking for a few seconds while Hannibal acknowledges Will’s presence, and he feels the man’s gaze follow him up the stairs.

He takes a shower in Hannibal’s room, not caring that Jack was downstairs with the man, leaving his clothes strewn all over the floor. Will wants to wear Hannibal’s shirt and have the man see it, and madden Hannibal, and have Jack oblivious to it as he usually was.

Will palms his cock absently, then reaches around to touch his little hole. He was still wet inside. The warm water beats against his skin and then he starts soaping himself up, and startles slightly when he hears the bathroom door open.

Hannibal was there, watching him. He wears his usual neutral expression, and Will smiles at him, going back to washing himself up.

“You were gone for longer than I expected,” the man says. “You didn’t go to school.”

 “I was at Beverly’s, not at Tony’s place, so don’t get irrationally jealous.”

Hannibal does not respond. Will turns around and sees the man undress as well, stepping into the warm shower behind him and kisses his boy’s neck hotly like he’d missed doing it to him.

“There’s something to be done about your insolence,” Hannibal says, turning him around to face him and crushes their mouths together in a hungry kiss.

“Yeah? What are you going to do?”

Hannibal seems amused than anything and he does slap over his rear, the sound loud in the bathroom. The boy yelps a bit, but doesn’t shy away.

“You weren’t this rude before, Will.”

“You know why,” he says bitingly, “You’re always gone, even more than my _real_ father was.”

Hannibal tenses slightly at Will’s rudeness.

“I have work to do, you understand that.”

Will moves away from him leaves the shower, towelling himself off.

“I understand everything, old man,” he snaps, “I’m going to sleep. In my _own room_.”

“Will.”

The boy takes off Hannibal’s shirt and puts his scattered clothes back on and makes to leave, ignoring the man.

“William,” he says warningly, “Stay here with me. I’m not asking, I’m telling you to.”

Will hears the dangerous note laced in his raspy voice, and eventually backs down. He goes to Hannibal’s bed and sits on the covers reluctantly.

"Why do you want to keep me?" he asks Hannibal, when the man wraps his arms around him and kisses his hair.

“Because you’ve always been mine, haven’t you?”

“Are you going to fuck me again?” he asks him, making himself sound decidedly innocent. He knows how he looks like to Hannibal.

“Naughty boy,” he chides, “Do you think I can refuse you when you say it like that?”

“M’still wet. And I’m sore.”

Hannibal kisses him firmly with tongue and teeth and pulls Will into his lap, despite Will not being a kid anymore.

“About what you said earlier—”

“Hm?”

“Don’t talk to me like that when I’d do anything in the world for you,” Hannibal says sternly.

“Yeah?” Will smiles at him and kisses Hannibal’s neck slightly, “You’ll do anything, old man? Will you fire Franklyn for me? I don’t like seeing his face around.”

“I’ll do that for you, you know I will. You’re my darling boy.”

Hannibal takes off Will’s shirt and fondles his lithe, lightly muscled body, with all the bruise-marks he’d put on him the night before. He pinches his nipples and rubs his back, running his hands along his sides and tickling him, making Will shudder with laughter. Hannibal looks at him fondly.

 “You’re really a dirty old pervert,” Will says, “You never fuck anyone in years, and then the only person you’ll have is me. And you call yourself my foster father.”

“I don’t see anything wrong,” Hannibal teases. He makes Will shuck his pants and boxers, completely naked on top of him.

He admires his boy, all smooth skin and light muscles in the right places. He palms his young cock, making Will spread his legs and lick his kiss-bitten lips as Hannibal looks adoringly at him.

“Bev called me your son, and it made me think of what we did last night,” Will breathes.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Is that how you see me?”

“No,” Hannibal responds, with a light bite over Will’s collarbone. “I’ve never considered you to be my son.”

Will made a small sound when he was lifted and pushed down on his back, legs spread haphazardly, Hannibal’s mouth intent on pressing kisses on his thighs and over his little hole, making him squeak.

He yelped when Hannibal stuck his tongue in his hole and sucked and kissed lewdly, before his small noises became moans. Will blushed hard when he realised what Hannibal was doing, his little toes curling when Hannibal sucked the cum out of him.

“I could smell you when you came back home,” he tells Will, “You reeked of me still. You liked that, didn’t you?”

“Y-Yeah, I did, _AH_ —” Will jolts slightly, then covers his face in mortification. “That’s so dirty, Hannibal, why d’you gotta do that!”

The man stopped. He looked at Will, his hole tongued open and wet with saliva and cum.

He nearly salivated at the picture he made. Will was beautiful.

Will always submitted to him prettily. Hannibal watched him with intent, carelessly biting on Will’s inner thigh causing the boy to yelp, his pretty eyes watering.

“Ow— _oww_! Don’t make me kick you,” Will says petulantly.

He turns him around on his hands and knees, the man grinding his cock against Will’s round little bum. Will ground back against him, his young cock bobbing and leaking precome with the little swivels of his hips, and when Hannibal wraps a hand gently around his neck in a light choking hold, he whimpers sweetly, and doesn’t say a thing.

“You’re such a good boy, Will. You have a very pretty neck,” he tells Will, voice sounding rough and he shudders, “I might even try putting a collar around you.”

Will starts slurring, burying his face in the pillow, face burning.

“S-Shut up, _no_ , I don’t wanna, that’s—”

Hannibal laughs and kisses his neck, tearing into a packet of lubricant and fucking him with his big fingers roughly. Will cries out and moves his little hips jerkily, his hands moving to rub his own nipples and cock, trying to get his own pleasure.

Hannibal lets him touch himself selfishly.

The man finally fucks into him and Will sobs when his arms get pulled behind his back. He feels small beneath him, skewered on his big cock, unable to use his hands for anything.

“You’re my good boy, aren’t you Will?”

“I’m not your good boy! Y-You’re so mean,” he whines petulantly, eyes watering up, “I just want—I don’t want you to tell me stuff like that, it’s so embarrassing.”

“Why not?”

“Because—AH-ah—I’m not a pet!”

“No?”

Hannibal grunts, pulling his boy onto his cock deeper, grabbing Will towards his pistoning hips with the boy’s arms. It was an embarrassing, domineering position, and Will felt plugged full, pounded in deep and completely overtaken.

“Do you know how much I love you?” Hannibal says raspily into his ear.

“Y-Yeah, I do, oh, AH— _f-fuck,_ Hannibal!”

“I love your scent,” he kisses the nape of his boy’s neck, “Your youth, your beauty. You mean the whole world to me.”

Will feels his eyes water at that. He starts sniffling a little and Hannibal hears it, turning him around on his back to see his face, fucking him again in that position, and kisses him deeply.

Will wraps his arms and legs around Hannibal, offering himself to the man.

He doesn’t think he’d seen anyone so beautiful.

He halts for a moment, staring at him adoringly, brushing the curls out of his boy’s face.

“Don’t be such a sap,” he chides the man, “Oh god, just f-fuck me already.”

The man buries himself in Will and holds him tight, making love to his boy and pressing kisses and giving him words of adoration until Will spends all over himself. Hannibal grunts in his ear and begins to fuck him thoroughly, Will making little squeaking noises. He follows after with a frantic orgasm, pulling out of Will’s sore well-fucked hole with a string of cum from his dick and Will chuckles, wrapping his arms around Hannibal’s broad shoulders while the man panted against his neck.

The next morning finds himself too lazy to go to school, but Hannibal had made him breakfast and promised to drive him to school. He’s tempted to kiss the man when they reach, but knows it is too bold, so he simply hugs Hannibal before leaving.

School is ordinary and boring, and thinks what he could be up to had he just joined Hannibal for work.

When he returns home, it’s to a lonely house without the man, but his heart swells when he sees a brown pup fast asleep in a basket, along with a note from Hannibal. It’s unsigned, but he knows the distinctive elegant script.

It read, ‘Will, I know I’m gone most of the time, so I bought you a companion to keep you company. His name is Winston. Take good care of him.’

The little pup starts twitching in his sleep. Will watches over him and when the dog finally wakes up, he offers his hand to sniff and Winston licks his hand and lets him carry him to the garden to run around and play.

Will thinks, that despite the sort of life he’d gotten tangled into, he could possibly be happy when Hannibal is really the kindest, cruellest man he’s ever known.


	6. Chapter 6

When he’s eighteen, they celebrate Will’s birthday like a coming of age, and he’s given his own car and several other lavish gifts.  But he’s used to being spoiled. Hannibal had ensured it. He’s just finished high school and does not plan to go to college so soon. He has too much free time on his hands, and Hannibal does not want Will out of his sight, so he tells Will he can start coming along with him to work.

Hannibal had always dressed Will up in nice clothes. He smiles fondly when Will takes off his tie that Hannibal had carefully knotted on his collar that morning. “Don’t want to look like a stuffy old man like you do,” Will teases him.

An aspect Will had always enjoyed was constant protection from bodyguards like Beverly. He had been considered too young to carry firearms until now, so he was surprised and pleased to be given his own gun and holster to wear under his coat.

“You’re a man now, Will, even if you’ll still be my boy,” Hannibal says with a quirk of his mouth to reassure him. It was like he knew what Will was thinking most of the time, “Beverly will have taught you how to shoot. I trust she has been useful. Now I want you to come along and observe, and don’t do anything foolish around my business partner. It is a simple job today,” he tells him, “The merchandise needs to be checked. Usually, I would let Price look at them in my name, but I’ll let you in on it this time.”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve discussed this.” Hannibal pats his shoulder. “Give me a kiss.”

Will smiles and obliges, kissing the man on his mouth. They leave, and Will doesn’t question where they are going when Beverly drives them to a warehouse. He stands behind Beverly for protection, feeling slightly unsure and out of his depth when Hannibal approaches the few men, who are waiting with open arms. Will doesn’t know what to do, so he surveys the number of men. They had five and, outnumbered as they were, Beverly and Hannibal seem completely calm.

“Chilton,” the man says, smiling, “How nice to see you. I trust your journey here went well?”

“It did,” Chilton replies with what Will thinks is a slimy-looking grin. “You’ve come without Jack?”

Hannibal says nonchalantly, “He’s busy helping me run shop. Talk to me about your newest shipment.”

"Right, so yeah, these are some real fresh imports from Mexico, from Russia, the sorts, man. The .44 Magnum? It's a real monster. Expensive, though. It'll stop a car at a 100 yards, put a round right through the engine. It's a premium, high resale weapon. I could sell this to a jungle bunny in Harlem for 500 bucks, but I just deal high-quality goods to the right people. Let me take you round through it." Chilton started talking through it like a salesman, showing the other weapons from the lorry, Hannibal checking up on the merchandise to look at the quality of it. It was admittedly of the standard Chilton kept bragging about, and he let the man talk through the other weapons.

"Look at this. You interested in the automatic? It's the Colt .25 automatic. It's a nice little gun. How about dope? Grass? Hash? Coke?"

"You some kind of a travelling salesman?"

"Nah, just want to keep my customers well informed."

"I am well-informed. By Zeller and Price, who usually handle this stuff."

Chilton starts laughing nervously. "So, uh, any reason why you're the one coming out here and not your usual men, Lecter?"

"Just trying to introduce my boy to the job." He gestures to Will standing beside Beverly, and Will gives him a sharp confident nod.

"Your son, huh? Hey, kid."

"Any reason why you need four of your men out for such a small job?”

“I like being hands on with what I do, you know? Customer relations."

“You do customer relations for selling guns and dope? Is that what you do?”

Chilton chuckles nervously again. Hannibal looks at him and lights a cigarette.

“Get two crates in,” he tells Chilton, and asks for Will for the briefcase of money. He waits for the man to count it, and for the crates to be put in the boot of the car before pulling Chilton aside. The other guys look at him warily.

"Listen, I’d like to say everything is fine and well, but I've heard things from Gideon. He’s not much of your man anymore, if he keeps selling you out to people like us. But he isn’t my problem, he’s yours. This is courtesy I’m doing you by telling you this, Chilton. Do you understand?”

Chilton nods jerkily, obviously spooked.

“I’d like to warn you to keep your people in check and tell them to stop coming here to do business. It’s very bad for mine, do you understand? I don’t need people fighting on the streets because they’re losing money. I don’t need people on the streets getting your watered down dope, it can stay right there on your streets. Our relationship had always been strictly about guns and money. You’re good enough for only that. You hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.” Chilton’s initial bravado was gone, “I hear you. I’ll have a talk with Gideon.”

Lecter laughs and pats the man’s shoulder. His voice was low and raspy, but Will can understand what he’s trying to say to Chilton. “You take care. And remember what I said. Don’t fuck me over.”

And when they leave, the air is tense while Beverly drives them away. Will had heard and noticed everything, and he subtly places a hand on Hannibal’s knee.

“I don’t think that was too tough,” Will says boldly. Hannibal laughs.

“It’s Chilton. He’s not tough.” And then to Beverly, “Would you like to come and stay for dinner, Beverly?”

“Sure. You cooking?”

“I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t.”

“That sounds great,” Beverly says, with a smile in her voice. She pulls into the big house and carries the crates inside, as she’s the one who did inspection on the weapons, busying herself with it while Will and Hannibal walked into the kitchen to prepare for dinner.

“This is a little domestic for you,” Will laughs when Hannibal kisses his neck discreetly while hovering behind him to take the knife.

“Problem?”

“Not at all. Now stop touching me, you’re supposed to be preparing food.”

The older man smiles at his usual cheek. Will helps to cut some vegetables, though he leaves most of the preparation to Hannibal afterwards. He just watches him expertly slice the meat and cook. It’s almost like a show, everything so fluid that Will just looks on with awe, though he tries to hide it initially.

“Where did you learn how to cook?”

“One of my father figures was an Italian chef. He taught me everything to know about making good food.”

“What sort of man was he?” Will asks.

“He was a strong, large man. He had five fingers, but when he talked he only used three.” Hannibal makes a ‘rock on’ gesture with his hands, and makes Will laugh, “He was a good teacher. We used to eat very well because of him.”

“Pops wasn’t that good of a cook,” Will says.

“It’s good that I am, then.”

When he’s done, he plates the food carefully so it looks presentable. Will always marvels this part. Hannibal had always liked beautiful things, and his creations were always well-done. He never compromised, especially on food.

“Beverly?” Hannibal calls out, “The food’s done.”

It’s odd and lovely to be seated around the table, the three of them, while Hannibal explains to Beverly what they were having. They’re halfway through the meal when Beverly’s phone rings, and she excuses herself with a polite smile. Her voice is muffled through the wall when she speaks, but they can still hear snippets of her heated conversation.

“What? Why the fuck are you calling me, call for backup first!—No, he’s with me. Jack, you’re gonna get fucked if you think he’s coming down just for this.”

She sounds angry enough. Hannibal wipes his mouth with the cloth napkin and takes a sip of wine.

She finally surfaces at the doorway and says, “Hannibal, thanks for the dinner. I’m sorry I have to go now. There’s been a situation at the bar Downtown.”

“How bad is it?”

“It’s Chilton’s guys, a group of them came in looking for a fight with Jack over some dope money. Zeller and Price are with him. They’re being shot at right now, it’s become something insane. Hannibal, there’s civilians being killed with guns and it doesn’t look good at all. I should go.”

There’s a look of cold anger that passes Hannibal’s face and Will flinches a bit. It’s murderous intent he sees, and the man stands up, quickly taking his jacket and going to his room, grabbing some guns and ammo.

Will follows.

“Are you really going to go there? Beverly says you shouldn’t.”

“That’s not the way I run things. Jack’s my right hand man, I can’t lose him.”

“You might get hurt.”

“I might not,” Hannibal says impatiently, “It’s not only my life at stake.”

“Then I’ll come too,” Will says, grabbing a gun holster and tucking a gun after he put it on.

“Will,” he frowns, “You don’t know what you’re doing. I do.”

“I can be useful too,” he says defensively.

“I don’t have time for this,” Hannibal snaps, “If you get shot and die, that’s on me. Don’t you understand that?”

“You can get shot and die too, I don’t understand why you have to keep protecting me all the time! I’m not a child anymore, old man!”

Beverly’s voice interrupts them. “Hannibal, the car’s ready! We gotta go now!”

Hannibal gives him a sharp look and leaves, and Will stubbornly follows. The older man doesn’t say a thing when Will checks and loads his gun. The air is tense on the drive to the scene.

“Stop a block away from the bar, and wait there, yeah?” Beverly says to the driver, “Be on standby in ten, I’ll need you quick.”

The three of them rush out of the vehicle to get into the bar. The street is a mess, and dead bodies are strewn on the streets. It looks like a bloody war scene and it’s something that eats inside Will’s gut. The police haven’t arrived yet, but Hannibal knows they will soon, so he has to make quick work to get Jack and the rest out of there.

It’s the first time Will has been thrown into such a situation, but he’d wanted it. Hannibal had told him to stay at home, but he didn’t want that to happen again, didn’t want Hannibal leaving him behind at home to become a habit.

Will is scared, his muscles tense, holding his automatic firmly with a hand while Beverly scopes out the place. A bullet nearly hits her head and she curses, shooting the perpetrator with a steady, unwavering hand.

“Jack?” She yells, “Where are you?! Price? Zeller?!”

“Behind the fucking bar!”

Hannibal stepped in to the bar and quickly took out a few of Chilton’s men, shooting them with deadly precision in the skull. Will was at the front door, keeping a lookout. He didn’t need to pull the trigger yet.

“Clear,” Beverly says, and the three men stumble out from behind the bar. Price was the one most badly hurt, his shirt was bloodied through.

“He’s been shot in the stomach,” Jack says, and Beverly stifles her urge to cry as she helps him up. The two of them make their way to the front entrance, and Hannibal barks out for them to go through the back exit.

“I’ll keep it open,” Will says.

He pushes open the door, and his eyes widen.

There is a loud noise. A bang. He can’t hear anything, not even the sound of his faltering heart.

Will realises he’s been shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “He was a strong, large man. He had five fingers, but when he talked he only used three." This is a direct reference to Sonny's character in A Bronx Tale.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s easy enough to track down the woman. She’s a pretty thing in her mid-thirties, with wheat-yellow hair and big blue eyes, and it’s easy to see why Chilton had chosen her to be his wife. Now, she looks jaded and hardened, very much a bitter gangster’s wife with too much time to spare and money to spend, and overly used to a violent lifestyle.

Hannibal takes a moment to admire her.

He discreetly tails her to the high-class bar she frequents. She mingles with her group of friends, gets drunk, snorts some coke, fucks another woman’s husband in the men’s toilets and then leaves alone and lonely, unguarded and high on narcotics.

She tries hailing a cab, and curses when none of them stop. Hannibal drives toward her, unwinding his car window. She looks at him, walking on hurriedly.

“I’m not a call girl. Go away,” she slurs.

“You’re Frederick’s wife, Elvira, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah, what if I am? Don’t talk about that bastard to me, that no good sonofabitch.”

“Come in, I’ll drive you home. I’m his friend. He asked me to look out for you.”

She stops walking, and peers at him carefully.

“What, a man like you working for him?” She snorts, looking at his outfit, then at his Bentley.

“I don’t work for him, I’m a business associate. I’ve seen you before. I’m Hannibal Lecter,” he introduces himself formally.

“I think I’ve heard of you before,” she mutters, and she’s too drunk to realise who he really was, “Once or twice. Will you really send me home?” She looks around reluctantly, “I mean, none of the cabs will stop.”

“Of course I will. Won’t you get in the car?”

She succumbs, walks to the other side of the car unsteadily, and gets in. She doesn’t even remember to put on the seatbelt, but Hannibal doesn’t say a thing.

“I assume you know where I live?” she asks him warily.

“Yes, your home in Riverdale. I assure you it’s in my direction too, so don’t worry.” There was a hint of dark satisfaction in his voice as he says, with a soft hint of smile, “It’s not nice to leave a pretty young woman like you prone to all the criminals and bad people walking the streets in this city.”

“Thank you,” she returns his smile. “You’re so kind.”

Hannibal does not answer.

The woman is lulled to sleep with the low purring of the vehicle’s engine and the sound of classical music playing low. He drives to a secluded part of town that had been construction site at one time, but is abandoned. He stops the car and when she stirs, he drags her out into a dusty room, her limbs flailing and fingers clawing at his jacket.

He isn’t fazed.

He gets on top of her, and presses down on her throat cruelly with his big hands, his strong thumbs crushing her trachea. Her pretty face contorts in disbelief, anger and hopelessness, veins knotting in her forehead. Her skin turns red.

Hannibal watches as the colour drains from her skin, and she finally stops moving.

She is dead.

Hannibal calmly gets up and brushes off his clothes, walking to his car to open the boot and puts on a plastic suit and gloves. He takes a box of cleaning agents, surgical instruments and a convenient ice cooler box, and places them neatly on the dusty ground.

He begins his work.

He unzips the back of her dress, neatly folding it along with her sheer stockings and her high heeled shoes. She is flawless, like a doll, lying there naked and dead --if one ignores the bruises on her neck. Hannibal begins to work calmly, using his scalpel to cut through her flesh.

The veins on his arms bulge with the effort he puts in to do so.

He cuts a portion of her shoulder out.

She is lean, and does not have much fat.

Blood drips out from her dead flesh, from the incisions, when he extracts the choice cuts of meat. He does not take her liver or her lungs, the two organs destroyed by her smoking and drinking habit. He decides to take her thigh meat too.

His extraction is neat and precise. He looks at his work admiringly, closing the cooler box, and washes her body off, then dresses her back again. He folds her hands together on her stomach, so it seems like she’s been sleeping, lying down in the dirt like a dirty, yellow-haired broken angel.

The finishing touches are made.

He leaves after cleaning up the scene, taking off his plastic suit to dispose of, and taking the cooler box with him.

Before he drives off, his phone rings. It’s Beverly.

“Hannibal, where are you? Will just woke up, he’s asking for you.” Her voice sounds slightly choked with emotion.

“I’ll be there soon.”

He drives off to the hospital, with the woman’s meat stored in an ice cooler box, and his car parked in the hospital’s parking lot like he had nothing to hide.

To others, he really didn’t.

When he reaches the ward, he walks in to see Will crying in Beverly’s arms. He watches the moment for a while longer before approaching the bed, stroking Will’s back. The boy looks up with watery eyes and he looks painfully beautiful.

The things he does for this boy, Hannibal muses.

“Hannibal?”

“Will.” He comes forward after Beverly lets him go, and embraces his boy carefully, to not disturb the stitches on his shoulder, kissing the top of his head.

He allows himself to feel some emotion. He holds Will like he was the most precious thing, and lets a few tears slide down his face. Will’s fingers shakily wiped them off, and the sweet boy gives him a watery smile.

Hannibal feels, at this moment, he lives for that. That he’s justified for his actions just a couple of hours ago. He thinks, if Will had a sharper sense of smell, he would smell the lingering scent of blood on Hannibal’s skin.

But he doesn’t. Hannibal holds the boy’s jaw and strokes the bit of stubble growing, and gives him a smile.

“Do you want to go home, Will?”

Will nods. “Y-Yeah, I wanna. I hate it here.”

“Wait here. Beverly can help you dress, I’ll talk to the doctor,” he said calmly.

It was a quick process of bribing the doctor, who was adamant that Will had to stay. Hannibal calmly hands an envelope over, and tells the nurse to bring him the medication required for Will. She quickly obliges and the doctor shakes his head, but he takes the envelope nonetheless and walks away. The same nurse takes Will off the IV and cut off his tag, and Will was dressed by then, and the three quietly leave.

When they reach home, Hannibal takes out the ice cooler box along and Will looks at it curiously.

“What’s that?” he asks, “Have you been fishing?”

Hannibal gives him a calm smile.

“Perhaps.”

 

* * *

 

 

“This is quite a spread,” Chilton comments, looking at the array of meat dishes, all intricately prepared.

“I don’t compromise when I have an esteemed guest for dinner.”

Chilton laughs. The sound makes Hannibal think of ugliness.

“Tuck in,” Hannibal says formally, watching as he sipped his wine slowly, savouring the taste.

The look on the man’s face as he chewed on the meat was glorious. Hannibal relishes it.

“What sort of meat is this?”

“Pork, of course,” he tells Chilton. His jaw minutely clenches in the rush of cool anger that washes over him, as the man took pleasure in the taste of his own wife’s meat.

Chilton keeps on eating, and then says, “Pity, my wife would have liked this sort of meal too.”

“Speaking of her, where is she?”

“I don’t know, she just disappeared after last night. I wouldn’t worry. She’s always been like that,” he laughs dismissively.

“Now you understand the actual reason why I brought you here, other than to eat good food,” he says in a dead calm as he looks at Chilton.

The man looks up. He sees the utter seriousness on Hannibal’s face, and his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows.

Chilton starts to sweat.

“I know, I have punished the guys responsible. I never meant for it to escalate to this, I swear. I wouldn’t disrespect you or Jack, believe me. Your boy has been hurt too, I heard, and I apologise-”

“Don’t you dare speak about him,” Hannibal snarls. "What have I said to you before, Chilton?"

"I know what you said, I just think that it's unreasonable, that you’re so worked up, it’s easily solved, I mean—It’s no big deal, yeah?"

"Unreasonable? Frederick," Hannibal says dangerously, "What have I said to you before?"

Chilton starts fidgeting, adjusting his own clothes self-consciously.

"Well—you said that I should keep my men off your streets."

"And have you?"

"Yeah-” Chilton winces at his own slip, and convinces, “ _No_ , but it's difficult, you see? Surely you understand, there’s always been people you can’t rely on, and it’s tough-"

"You aren't that much of a leader if you can't keep your men under your control,” Hannibal snarls. “Do you know what we are, Frederick? We're the bad guys. The bad guys are the ones the cops, the FBI need, because we're there to take the fall when things go wrong. They won't differentiate between the bosses, Frederick, that's us, and the street thugs you can't seem to rein in. Do you want to end up in jail? Would you do that to your wife?"

"Of course not, but the thing is, it's been tough."

"And who's to be blamed for that? Me? You’re your own tough guy. It's your fucking city. It's your men. Learn how to control them."

Chilton sounds a bit frantic as he says quickly, "Yeah, I wasn't blaming you, Hannibal."

“Do you know how difficult it is to be a leader? It is easy to be a boss of something, but it is another to lead. It requires more than ordering your men around. It requires integrity, the same kind of integrity that makes you avoid ruining the purity of the dope you're selling too much, and respect earned from your people. They work for you, and they might turn on you. You understand this."

“I _know_ , for fuck’s sake, Hannibal,” he says exasperatedly.

"It sounds like you were trying to put the blame on someone else. Who are you going to blame now, when it’s clear who’s at fault?"

“It’s me,” Chilton snaps at last, his patience having worn thin. He stands up and makes to leave. "Yeah, I'll just fuck off right now, won't I?"

Hannibal gives him a cruel smirk.

"Do you know what you just had?"

"What?” He looks at Hannibal, slightly confused, “What are you trying to say? You said it was pork?"

"I'm not always an honest man,” Hannibal says calmly, lighting a cigarette. The smoke passed his lips like a cloud, “But I’ll be honest with you now. I’d like to make you feel pain that I did, Frederick. You see, what you had was your wife. Did you think she disappeared by chance, with her friends? _No._ I had to teach you a lesson somehow."

"What the fuck? Are you joking with me? Are you fucking me around, Hannibal?"

Chilton sounds frantic. He looks like he’s swallowing down bile.

"No. I'm honouring her when I use her meat to feed you, fucking bastard."

Hannibal stands up and grabs the man’s shoulder in a startlingly strong hold. "You're paying attention now, aren't you?"

“You’re gonna kill me now, huh?”

"Yes. I’ll kill you, like I did your wife."

The sound of Chilton being shot rings loud in the house. The walls get splattered with brain and blood, and when he falls, he lands on the expensive carpet, and bleeds through it.

Hannibal lets out a weary sigh, and begins to clean up the food first.

Will walks into the scene warily, startled at the sound of the gunshot. He’s tense when he sees Hannibal, fearing the worst.

What he sees is Chilton’s dead body, skull blown open, and the blood and brains.

It looks like the blood he lost while he was shot.

Will feels his stomach lurch.

“God, Hannibal, _what_ —”

“You know I love you, Will,” he tells the boy, disposing of the cutlery, dumping entire bowls of food into a large plastic bag. “I’d do anything for you.”

Will feels faint.

“But what did he _do_?”

“He hurt you.”

“And you shot him?”

“Yes. I fed him the flesh of his wife. He deserved it,” Hannibal says pointedly, “I did it for you.”

Will does not make a sound. He wants to scream, _but I didn’t ask you to_ , and nothing comes out. He doesn’t realise that he’s crying, until he tries to take a step back, and stumbles, and lets out a loud sob. He slides to the floor, clutching his painful shoulder and cries, wracked sobs heaving his body. He doesn’t know what to do.

He realises the scales that had covered his eyes before have now fallen out.

This is the man he is in love with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://superwholock-johnlock.tumblr.com/post/56417471690/my-dad-told-me-not-to-get-near-you-listen-to
> 
> Someone did a gifset for my fic!!! Check it out!


	8. Chapter 8

“How can you just stand there and say you did this for _me_?”

“His men hurt you,” Hannibal says to Will in a dead calm, “He’s the reason why likely won’t ever be able to hold a gun properly in your right hand now. Did you mean to have me take this lightly, Will?”

“No! But you don’t go killing people like him in our house because you deem them the cause!”

“You don’t know the pain I felt—how I felt when I thought the man had shot you in the head.” Hannibal starts to sound angry. This is the most emotion Will has ever seen the man show. It is frightening, the way his handsome face turns cruel. Will knows he should have expected this, but never blatantly in front of him. Being protected had made him grow soft. “Did you want me to take it lying down? Would _you_ have, if it had been me that had been shot? Could I have relied on you, Will, or are you _weak_?”

“I would have found a different way, that’s what I would do!”

“What did you think I was?” Hannibal snarls, “Did you think I was a saint?!”

Will hesitates for a second, because he almost _did_. He did, and he doesn’t know what to admit.

“No! Of course not!”

“Then why are you so concerned about what I did? This is your world as well, you’ve been too spoiled, Will, you haven’t seen enough—the sacrifices I have to make in order to remain who I am!”

“Gods, Hannibal—”

“Don’t you remember how I first met you?”

“Y-Yeah, you shot a man in front of me.”

“Did you think I had changed? Are you that naive?” Hannibal snarls, cruelly.

Will looks up. Hannibal’s brown eyes are the same, emotionless and cold. There is none of the warmth of how he looked at Will before. He realises that Hannibal’s true nature is staring at him. Perhaps all the tenderness he’s shown is an extension of the mask he wears to make himself appear more human.

Will twitches in fear, and looks down into his lap. He hesitates to answer.

“No, of course not,” he says quietly.

“Don’t you dare have any doubts about me,” he tells Will. “I did what I did, to _protect_ you. That’s how I show you I love you.”

“Do you now?” Will challenges infuriatingly. “Really?”

“Don’t be insolent,” Hannibal snarls.

He wipes off his hands and walks towards Will, grabbing him by the collar, lifting him up.  Will can smell the gunshot residue from his fingers. “Don’t speak to me like that, Will.”

“What are you going to do, kill me like you did Chilton?!”

Hannibal snaps.

He grabs Will by his throat and slams him roughly against the wall.

“How dare you say that,” Hannibal snarls, grabbing Will’s hair and slammed his head into the wall again, “How _dare_ you insinuate that I would _ever_ kill you.”

Will feels blood trickling down his scalp, and a hard, throbbing pain. He feels the same kind of anger bleeding through him from Hannibal, and he’s had enough of being seen as weak, as too young. He punches Hannibal hard enough to send his head reeling back.

Will realises he’s drawn blood when he pushes the man away.

Hannibal laughs, a cold, cruel laugh.

“Don’t you believe me, Will?” he asks, “I love you so much I’d _kill_ for you.”

“Shut up!” Will yells, his hand wrapping around the man’s throat, thumb digging into his oesophagus. “Don’t fucking _say_ that!”

“Why not? Good God, Will,” he rasps a laugh, “Are you trying to kill me?”

Will doesn’t answer. He attempts squeezing down on Hannibal’s throat to crush it, but Hannibal is stubborn. He tightens the muscle of his neck, veins popping out with exertion, muscles cording.

Will’s heart beats impossibly fast, and he’s afraid.

His other hand twinges, but it’s useless, and he can’t even have a good enough grip to hold a glass of water in it. He curses it, but he’s blinded with rage and passion, and all that Hannibal can see in his beautiful eyes.

“You’re weakened, Will. I know, I’m the one who’s been taking care of you all this while.”

Hannibal cruelly kicks down on the back of Will’s knee, and in a surprised shout, he’s released and he goes down in a crumpled mess.

“You can’t even do it right,” Hannibal rasps out, “You’re too invested in your own emotions, Will. Your right arm is _weak_. You should have used a rope if you wanted to choke me to death.”

“Stop taunting me!” Will sobbed. “How dare you!”

“I’m not taunting you,” Hannibal says. “I’m telling you. You stayed with me for this long. You can’t get out of this. And in the future, if you wanted things done, you have to do it right. Chilton is proof that I’m doing it right.”

“I fucking _hate_ you—”

“Oh, don’t say things you don’t _mean_. You are terribly naive, Will, for all the time spent around me. You should remember what I said before. I said the worst thing in the world is to be weak and powerless. I’ve always been a man who craves power, and for that to happen, I’ll have to maintain the appearance of cruelty. But I’m no longer maintaining it, William, I’ve become it. I am cruel. And that is why my kind of power won’t go away for a long time.”

“Not unless I end it,” Will says angrily.

“You’re welcome to try, dear Will. You always are.”

Will grabs for the gun Hannibal used on Chilton, several metres away. The man realises what Will’s doing, but he’s too late.

Will has the gun cocked against Hannibal’s heart.

He released the safety of the gun, and the click sound rings through their ears.

Hannibal feels tense in anticipation. He wonders, for a second, how that would look, for his murder to be on Will’s hands.

He doesn’t expect what Will does next.

Will’s hot lips crush against his in the next moment, the barrel of the gun still pressed against his heart. He smiles against Will’s mouth, and kisses him back roughly, devouring his boy’s lips.

“You’ve finally started to learn, haven’t you?” The man’s voice croons against his ear. Will rips at Hannibal’s shirt, still aiming the gun at his heart, and feels up the tent in his pants.

“Yes.” Will laughs in incredulousness, “You’re a fucking pervert, old man, still getting hard when I could kill you anytime.”

“You are rather exciting, Will.”

“Fucking pervert,” Will says again, laughing.

Will undoes Hannibal’s belt and zipper, pulling his half-hard cock out. Will’s eyes are half-lidded, his initial anger turning into desire.

Hannibal feels tenderness wash over him. His hand reaches up to stroke through his hair. He buries his nose in his hair and breathes in his boy’s scent and blood.

“I could kill you,” Will tells him.

“You could have, at any moment before this, but you haven’t. What does that say about you?”

Will palms the man’s cock in his hand in the way Will knows he likes, and makes Hannibal lose a bit of control. Will smirks when he sees it.

“It says that you’re my weakness,” Will says coyly.

“You should be careful about that,” Hannibal laughs.

“No, _you_ should be careful about me.” Will kisses him again, full of passion and love, and whispers, “I’m sorry I overreacted. I shouldn’t have questioned your judgement.”

“Of course. I understand.”

Will tugs down Hannibal’s pants and pulls them off, and still has the gun pointed at the man. He eases himself down on Hannibal’s lap, straddling his thighs, rubbing his bum against the man’s hard cock.

“I’m still wet,” he tells Hannibal, still managing to sound innocent.

Hannibal _growls_.

He pushes two fingers in himself, and makes a lewd little noise. He’s smug, knows the effect he always has on Hannibal.

His fingers slip out wet, coated with come. He does it again, pushes his fingers in, in, and Hannibal’s eyes are raking over his gorgeous body hungrily. Will fingerfucks himself until he’s frustrated with want, his weakened arm trembling.

“My arm hurts,” he complains, then says demandingly, childishly, “Hannibal, do it for me.”

Hannibal obliges. His always steady hands were now trembling, hungry and careless with desire, and remains that way when his large fingers spear Will open.

Will makes another delicious noise.

“Do you enjoy this, Will?” Hannibal asks, amused.

“Ah--having you in my power? _Yeah._ ”

His boy’s cock twitches against his flat stomach. When the man has four big fingers fucking his little hole furiously, deliberately missing his prostrate, Will whimpers and shoves his hand away.

“Bastard,” he scolds. He’s awfully needy.

He sits down on Hannibal’s thick cock fully, whining deliciously.

Hannibal almost can’t believe the gorgeous sight Will makes.

“D-Don’t move,” Will threatens, flush staining his cheeks, “Don’t fucking move, Hannibal, let me ride you, _ah_!-mgh—”

Hannibal swallows, his throat bobbing.

Will is devastatingly beautiful.

His hips move in a lewd rhythm, sitting himself balls deep and clenching his inner muscles tight, driving Hannibal _insane_. His fingers itch to hold Will, but when he wraps his fingers around Will’s hips, Will growls.

Will slams Hannibal’s body flat to the marble floor forcefully, making his head hit stone.

Hannibal is dizzied for a moment.

“Don’t touch me,” Will snarls, “ _D-Don’t_.”

Hannibal laughs. “You’re on top of me and you’re still awfully submissive, Will.”

Will shoves the barrel of the gun into Hannibal’s mouth roughly. His teeth click against the metal.

“Ahn—ngh! Shut the fuck up, old man, you sick _bastard_. F-Fucking _psycho_.”

Will is taunting him, yet he still sounds awfully innocent, shamelessly erotic. Like he is still the sixteen year old, pliant and fevered hot with arousal under his touch.

Hannibal can’t tear the image of Will’s innocence away from him no matter how he tries.

Will rolls his hips harder and the angle made him hit an especially good spot, and he does it over and over again, his head thrown back in selfish pleasure.

Hannibal can’t speak around the metal, so he grabs Will’s hips again, going against his boy’s orders, and fucks up into him hard, once, twice, _thrice_ \--

Will makes an adorable squealing noise, and slaps his hands away, digging the gun deeper into his mouth, hitting the back of his throat. Hannibal remembers that the safety is off, and _finally_ , obediently, does as his boy says.

“AH-Hah! You wanted this, didn’t you? You wanted me to turn out to be as fucked up as you are,” Will snarls, “You got what you wanted, didn’t you? Does that get you off?”

Will fucks himself on Hannibal’s cock, riding him, more frantic than before.

The man’s dick twitches inside him, throbbing. Will _clenches,_ milks his cock.

“Look what you’ve done, I’m as fucked up as you are,” he says with a beautiful grin, panting, “I’m like the bastard you are now.”

Hannibal rasps something, his face flushed at this point.

“You’ve always been like this, you bastard, trying to control me-AH! Do I please you now?”

Hannibal nods, looking at his boy like he was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“You fucking pervert, fucking me when I was just sixteen—hngh, bet you liked that, you kept sticking your cock inside me, your _little boy_ , every chance you got, huh? You didn’t care if I _hurt_.”

Hannibal’s breathing sounded terrible, but Will didn’t care.

“D-Didn’t even wear a condom once,” he hisses, “Filthy bastard, you just wanted to ruin me. Did you like breeding me every single time, old man? Did you like thinking of me when I’m in school still full with your come, huh? Did you touch yourself?”

Hannibal’s face was red, genuinely unable to breathe, his eyes watering.

“Y-You know what? Yeah, you’ve ruined me, Hannibal, ah-AH, oh _fuck_ -! M’so close, so _close_ , AH-!”

His voice was all high pitched and he nuts all over himself, quivering and clenching around the man’s cock.

Will is a whimpering, shaky mess, still recovering from his intense orgasm. He finally pulls out the gun from Hannibal’s mouth.

Hannibal doesn’t hesitate. He slams Will down onto the marble floor, making the boy shriek, cock impaling him over and over again roughly. Hannibal pounds into Will, rough and hard.

Will’s legs are spread haphazardly, and he’s ridden so hard that it starts to hurt.

“What a good boy you’ve become,” Hannibal snarls. He buries his face in Will’s neck and breathes in his scent. He smells like desire and sex.

“You’re right, I wanted to ruin you. I _loved_ the thought of fucking my own little boy. I am a fucking pervert, Will,” he growls.

Will makes little pained noises, yet offers himself even more and spreads his legs wider for Hannibal.

His bum is sore, his little hole is reddened and puffy from the rough fucking.

“That’s a good slut. You’re all mine.”

“Y-You’re all mine too,” Will laughs, and palms his own limp cock.

He yelps when Hannibal bites down on his shoulder, drawing blood.

Will bites back.

He whites out with pleasure. Hannibal spends deep, deep inside his boy and growls, gripping his hips in place. Will bounces on his cock a little when he juts in a couple more times to milk him thoroughly.

Will extracts himself from Hannibal after a while, the man’s cock pulling out with a slick squelch as he pads to the phone, contemplating for several seconds before ringing Jack.

He gives Hannibal a coy smile. Hannibal looks at Will proudly.

“Jack?—Hey, we’ve got into a bit of problem. Hannibal needs you here, bring Zeller and Price too. We have some waste to be disposed of real quick. Yeah, it is. Alright. Thanks.”

Hannibal’s sitting there, on the floor, looking at him amusedly. Will walks over and helps him up, and hugs Hannibal tightly.

“I don’t doubt you love me,” he tells the man. “I—also understand why you did what you did about Chilton.”

“Good.”

Hannibal smiles, and kisses his boy with adoration and love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In TV show canon, Hannibal is secretly cruel to Will...and in this fic, Hannibal is more blatantly cruel to Will.
> 
> Poor Will, trapped with Hannibal who can't really feel as much as Will can.


	9. Chapter 9

After the twisted high Will feels after the rough sex, Will’s head is strangely clear. Hannibal gets up and cleans up the dining tables, disposing of the entire set of fine china and silverware, and the intricately cooked pieces of meat. Will is no stranger to Hannibal’s cooking. Will feels strange, though he doesn’t realise why.

Hannibal doesn’t ask him to do a thing. He throws out the black garbage bags outside, knowing the waste management truck would go by the next morning. Something sticks in Will’s mind, but he can’t figure it out what it was just yet.

Will watches in sick fascination as Hannibal rolled Chilton’s dead body in the bloodied carpet that he died on. Hannibal is a strong man, _like he’s done this before,_ Will thinks, and he hoists the body up over his shoulders and into the basement. It’s a strangely clean place, with white walls and metal surgical tables and tools in glass cabinets.

For some reason, Will hasn’t recalled having stepped in the place before.

There was still so much blood in the dining room. Even if Hannibal had done this before, this was very sloppy work.

Hannibal places the bloodied carpet in a black bag. Chilton’s dead body is placed on the metal table, and Hannibal washes his hands and puts on a pair of surgical gloves and a plastic suit. He cuts through the man’s clothes, leaving him completely naked and disposes of them. Blood is still dripping out of the large hole from the back of his head, and Will doesn’t know how to feel sick. Hannibal looks in the lower cupboard for a chainsaw, and puts on a surgical mask, and only then speaks.

“Will, you can go upstairs and open the door for Jack when he comes,” Hannibal says calmly.

“No.”

Hannibal looks at him. “You don’t want to see this, Will.”

“Why not?” Will speaks with a challenging tone. “I’m not a _child_ anymore.”

Hannibal doesn’t say a thing.

“Suit yourself.”

The sound of the chainsaw is loud and roaring, and it jars Will. Hannibal just remains unflinching. He begins to saw through the dead man’s joints. One by one, his limbs are detached from his body into separate pieces.

Will watches on with detached horror.

When Chilton’s head is sawed off from his neck, Will runs out of the basement and his legs feel weak, and he vomits into the kitchen sink. He washes his mouth out with water.

His hands are shaking terribly. He sinks to the floor, trembling.

Hannibal doesn’t even _flinch_ when he does a thing like that, like he was used to murdering. He killed Chilton because he thought it was justice for Will getting shot.

Right then, he sees everything with noise and clarity.

Sometimes, his mind makes leaps even Will doesn’t fathom, and it’s telling him he’s right. The evidence was blatantly there. No one’s hasty to throw out food, not especially Hannibal, when he’s spent hours preparing his elaborate meals. He was hasty enough to clear out the table including the silverware and expensive china and the _meat_ before he brought Chilton’s body into the basement.

The fridge was empty save for condiments the last Will remembered. Suddenly, he recalls the cooler box Hannibal carried with him back when he was discharged from the hospital. He’s flooded with images in his brain that makes him think twice.

The meat had looked awfully suspicious. Hannibal’s behaviour had been awfully suspicious.

Will feels sick.

His mind tells him that Hannibal had murdered Chilton’s wife, and used the meat to feed him with. Suddenly, it all made sense. He _felt_ the true extent of the weight of knowing Hannibal’s real nature, and it was horrifyingly _painful._

His mind starts working backwards to the first time he’s ever seen the man. He remembers the look on his face as Hannibal just shoots the man in the head in broad daylight on the streets of his childhood. His eyes were ice cold.

Will wonders if Hannibal had sent out a hit in the first place to kill his father, to ensnare him in his world.

Will can’t breathe with the frightening knowledge that’s he’s realised.

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until the doorbell rings and he feels wetness on his face. Will gets up on shaky legs, and determinedly walks past the blood and brains on the floor and walls where Chilton was shot, and opens it to see Jack and Zeller.

He steps aside to let them in. Jack looks at Will dressed in just a pair of boxers and still sniffling pathetically, and shakes his head. Zeller looks at them, adjusts his heavy looking bag, and grumbles something about always being the cleaner, and goes to inspect the damage in the dining room.

“Trust me, Will, I tried talking him out of it,” Jack says, patting Will’s shoulder sympathetically after he closes the door. “I didn’t think he’d do it with you in the house.”

“You’d be perfectly fine helping him, huh?” Will says bitterly. “He’s in the basement.”

Jack looks at him coldly, like Will had been questioning his loyalty. “Of course I’ll help him.”

Will feels an uneasy jolt go down his spine.

He’s never felt so _alone_.

Jack leaves him, and Will watches as Zeller put on gloves and mops up the blood and brains, and uses a solution to remove the last traces of blood from the floor.

“Are you scared, Will?” Zeller asks amusedly.

Will doesn’t answer.

“Always thought Hannibal protected you way too much,” Zeller says, though not unkindly, wringing out the mop then throwing out the water. He finishes off the job with bleach, and looks at the rest of the floor carefully. “Bet this opened your eyes big and wide. He’s fucking crazy, man. Bet you knew of that before you started sleeping with him, I’m sure.”

Will realises belatedly that it was plenty obvious. The clues are there, and he probably has scratches and bite marks all over his skin, and they’re a blatant sign of what he’d been doing. Will still smells of sex and he starts to feel an angry itch crawling under his skin and he wants to shower.

He steps forward to Zeller. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

“You’re one of the people closest to Hannibal. Back when I was thirteen, my father was killed by some thug. That’s what the copper said. What I’m asking you is; and I want a truthful answer, did Hannibal call for that hit? _Did he ask for my father to be killed?_ ”

Zeller stops. He hesitates, looking at Will’s young face.

“He didn’t, Will.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Will quietly snarls, “Swear to me he didn’t. You’re a friend, Brian, you should know better than to hide this from me.”

“He didn’t, Will, I swear,” the man says, frowning, “Fucking believe me, alright? He wouldn’t.”

Will breathes out a sigh.

“Will, don’t go doing nothin’ stupid.”

“Yeah. Yeah, alright,” Will says calmly.

Will takes the well-needed shower, the hot water scalding his skin and goes to sleep in the bed he shares with Hannibal. When he feels Hannibal get into bed with him a couple of hours later, he knows all the evidence of the murder that just happened in the house is gone, and he lets the man kiss his neck and wrap his arms around his body.

He feels terrifyingly trapped and ensnared, and doesn’t really know what to do.

 

* * *

 

Will lets things continue as they were until the shoulder wound he suffered started to fully heal. They don’t talk about what happened, and Will suspects that Hannibal never would. Will is smart enough not to bring it up needlessly.

It still claws at him, thinking what Hannibal does every time for work. He wonders how many other people he’s killed before, and wonders how he can sleep soundly at night with the notion of blood-soaked hands in order to maintain his position of power.

A few months pass, and he realises with certainty Hannibal would never change.

 _Jack, Zeller, Price, Beverly..._ He’s surrounded with murderers.

He wonders when they’re going to make him kill his first man. They’ve been letting him do grunt work, collecting protection money and hurting people when they don’t pay up. They’ve been making him watch over who the drugs go to in the city. Hannibal’s wanted him to start from the bottom and work his way up. It’s all simple, dangerous jobs that just require him to be careful, but nothing too brain-wracking so he feels tired of this kind of work already, and the seed of doubt and dissatisfaction is firmly planted in his mind. He doesn’t think he can ever find any appeal in _succeeding_ Hannibal as he wants.

The appeal of power is there, but it’s corrupt. Hannibal is evil. Will wants to work up the courage to say no.

He finally does.

That night, before Hannibal returns home, Will grabs a wad of cash from the man’s drawer and packs some clothes. He lights a cigarette and drives off, feeling reckless, his mind whirring with the possibilities of what he could do with real freedom. It’s been brewing in his mind how easy it could be for him to simply leave, but he’s been too much of a coward, he thinks.

That night, he doesn’t feel afraid.

He drives in the direction of Beverly’s house, but parks a few blocks away and makes his way there on foot. When he knocks on the door, no one answers. He knows that she’s probably doing a job with Zeller and Price, or perhaps with Hannibal himself. He knows that she’s one of his favourites. He picks the lock and gets in, closing and locking the door behind him and only turns on a lamp, whistling and waiting in the dim light for his dear friend to come home.

She does almost an hour later. He hears the soft creak of the door open, and the sound of her quiet footsteps into the house. Beverly has a gun aimed in Will’s direction, but visibly relaxes when she realises who it is. She tucks it back in the holster.

“Will,” she says with a smile, turning on the lights, “What are you doing here? You scared me.”

“Did I _really_ scare you?” Will laughs.

“No, it was a matter of speech.” She kicks off her shoes and places her coat on the rack, and sits down beside Will. She groans and stretches out, turning on the TV.

“Ugh, grab me a glass of cold water, Will.”

Will obliges. He pours a glass of water from the fridge, and hands it to her.

“Busy day?” he asks.

“Yeah. Some cunts try to think they can fuck us over but they keep on forgetting they’re messing around with me,” she says, taking a sip of water, quirking an eyebrow at Will, and notices the bag on the floor, “So what are you up to, breaking into my house like a little sneaky bastard, huh? You could’ve called me if you wanted to sleep over.”

Will smiles and lights a cigarette, offering one to Beverly. He lights it for her, and watches her exhale a cloud of smoke.

“I don’t want to sleep over,” he says.

“No?”

“Uhuh.”

“Yeah? Then what’s the matter, Will? Did something happen?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I don’t actually know what to do.”

Beverly knows it’s about Hannibal without him having to say a thing.

“You said something about giving me a way out if I’m ever reluctant and unhappy.”

“Yes, I did. I’m not going back on what I said now,” she says, patting him reassuringly. “Will, what happened? Did he hurt you?”

“He said he... did it for _me_. I don’t find that normal or _romantic_. He killed Chilton and his wife and because he’s a psychopath.”

Beverly looked at him, saying carefully, “Will, tell me what happened from the beginning.”

“Remember how I got shot when we were trying to get Jack and the rest out? Hannibal took it badly, so he murdered Chilton’s wife first. You know what he did? He cut her flesh out and put it in the ice cooler box when he took me home when I was discharged from the hospital. You saw it, you were with us. He fed Chilton her _meat_ , Beverly. Then he shot Chilton in the head,” he says, and his voice gets shaky near the end.

“He fed Chilton her _meat_?”

“I don’t have evidence because Jack and Zeller helped him dispose of it, but I’m sure he did.” Will stands up and starts pacing, “What else was in that ice cooler box? He was gone and no one was with him when I just woke up from the operation. He was acting suspicious; I could tell he was hiding something. He threw away the meat on the table, along with everything else including the plates—he doesn’t do _that_!—that was the first thing he did before even clearing Chilton’s body. Then there was the look in his eyes, Beverly, the _goddamn look in his eyes_ before he hacked him to pieces—”

It was a tirade of information but Beverly understood everything.

“Will...”

“And then I thought, if he keeps saying that he did it for _me_ , if he’s so willing to kill Chilton like that because I _got shot_ —it’s really not a large leap to think that he killed my own father when I was thirteen so he could get me for himself,” Will says, gesturing frantically, “Don’t you see, Beverly? Don’t you _see_?”

“Will, he didn’t kill your father, he didn’t ask anyone to kill him. I know for sure he didn’t. It was some goddamn thug. _I know_.”

“Yeah? He turned someone into a _cannibal_ before killing them and hacked them to pieces, all for revenge, Beverly, what makes you think he won’t do something worse than that if I get hurt again?” Will hisses. “I don’t want to see that fucking happen!”

“I know you don’t. Fuck, Will. How do you know all this? Did he tell you?”

“It’s something I can do, I make leaps with my mind, I told you this before. The evidence is there, I had it, and they’re just puzzles waiting to be pieced together. I don’t have the right pieces anymore, but I still see the full picture in my head. This sounds too much but I know I’m right, Beverly.”

“I’m not doubting you, Will,” she says, pondering and finishing her cigarette, and took a sip of water.

“Aren’t you?”

Beverly doesn’t answer.

“Do you plan on incriminating Hannibal, Will?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Just a yes or a no would be fine, Will. You’re asking a big favour out of me. I can get you out, but you can’t be thinking you can do anything about Hannibal’s crazy. You can’t touch him.”

“Yeah?” Will says bitterly, and tugs down his shirt collar to show her the bite and suck marks on his neck.

Beverly sighs.

“Well you promised before you’d let me out if I asked you to,” Will says, running his fingers through his hair and tugged on it in frustration. “Don’t back out on me when I need you, Beverly, please?”

Beverly stands up and places her hands on Will’s shoulders.

Will looks at her with sad, watery eyes.

“Of course not,” she says, wiping his tears away and holds him in her strong arms, “You poor boy. I’m not backing out.”

“I’m blessed with the best luck in the world, yeah?” Will says bitterly.

“Don’t say that. You’ve been luckier than me when I was your age. I didn’t have anyone like you did Hannibal.”

“He’s a monster, though.”

“But he took care of you. He loved you,” Beverly says. “Always remember that. Don’t go forgetting that now.”

Will is silent when Beverly sits him down and lets him cuddle against her, her rough hands stroking through his hair comfortingly.

“I had someone once,” she says, kissing the top of his curly head, “A pretty girl called Freddie. She had red hair and these perfect blue eyes. She was your age when I met her, and she would’ve been twenty-four had she not killed herself.”

“Why?”

“I had a difficult life before I started working for Hannibal. I was a cleaner. I started out killing people for money. This guy named Tony, who I worked for, owned me and took most of what I earned and gave me an allowance in return for protection, y’know, because it wasn’t legal for me to be here. And one day Hannibal put him out of his misery, took me in, sorted out everything legal so I was a proper citizen. So you understand why I have to be grateful to him.”

“I met Freddie in one of the diners downtown, she was a waitress and she liked books. She wanted to be a reporter. Me? I couldn’t read a thing. So she taught me everything I needed to know about reading and writing, and then I took her out to movies, bought her things to make her happy and we moved in together after a couple of months. She didn’t realise I had to be out workin’ most of the time, and that my money didn’t just come in from nowhere. She started taking smack, losing a lotta weight and yelling at me for losing her. She saw Hannibal dropping me off that one night and she thought I was cheating on her. Freddie took too much smack when I walked off after we argued, all in the heat of the moment, you know? I still think it was the single most stupid thing I’ve ever done. She went on and died on me.”

“I’m sorry,” Will whispers.

“All of our lives are surrounded with death and murder,” Beverly says to him, “We can’t escape it. You should know that better than anybody, Will. You go to bed, and I’ll do what I can tomorrow for you. Alright?”

“Yeah.”

Beverly squeezes him tight in a half-hug.

“Wouldn’t know what to do without you, Beverly,” he says, sleepily, and in that moment, he sounded heartbreakingly trusting and young.

Beverly swallows the lump in her throat and kisses the top of his head again, bringing him to the bedroom. She watches over him until he falls asleep.

Will gets woken up before the sun rises. Beverly tells him to shower and makes him some coffee before they leave in her car.

“What’s going to happen when Hannibal realises I’m gone?” he asks.

“He’s going to ask me, of course.”

“Then what? He’s going to be satisfied with your answer?”

“Will, he won’t kill me.”

“You’re so sure about that,” Will snorts.

“I am. Which is why I’m coming along with you too.”

Will looks at her incredulously, “Really? You will?”

“Yeah, I’ve always thought about living near the beaches in Spain, you know?” she smiles, and nudges him with a laugh, “Get far away from goddamn cities like these. Get a boat or something, and a couple of dogs and eat seafood, have new opportunities... you know, it’ll be nice. We’ll be nice together.”

“Really? God, Bev, why didn’t you tell me? You were being all mysterious and worrying me—Is that where we’re really going, Spain?”

“Yeah, we could go all around Europe too. It’ll be great.”

Will lets out a loud bark of laughter and smiles widely.

“I was getting worried for a second—Bev, I’m so happy you’re with me.”

“I am too, Will,” she makes a turn in the opposite direction to the airport, and drives into a different road.

“Where are we going, Bev? Airport’s that way,” Will says with a laugh in his voice.

“I am so happy, Will,” she continues, her voice shaking as she drives into a clearing. Will begins to panic. “I really am. I truly am sorry. I wish we could do all that, but I’m too tied to this life.”

Will sees Hannibal’s distinctive Bentley parked at the clearing. The man is standing there, looking like he’s been waiting for Will.

“Forgive me, Will,” she sobs, “But I can’t let you do what you want. I really _can’t_. I promised you once, but I can’t hold it true anymore. I’m indebted to him. Forgive me.”

Will sits there, stunned.

Hannibal opens the door.

His handsome face looks at Will with a sad, pensive gaze. He holds his hand out to Will.

His eyes were still cold as ice despite the apparent sadness in the rest of his features.

Will doesn’t know how to react.

“Hello, Will.”

**[End]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More facts about this story:
> 
> 1) This story is based loosely off "A Bronx Tale".
> 
> 2) Beverly's entire 'cleaner' story is an homage to Leon: The Professional.
> 
> 3) Eat alone, a mafia lingo: to keep for one's self; to be greedy. 
> 
> 4) I specifically wrote this so it can fit in at any time-period, be it in modern times or in the 1920's onwards.
> 
> 5) Chilton's dialogue in Chapter 6 is an entire reference to "Taxi Driver".
> 
> 6) Chilton's wife Elvira is direct homage to Tony Montana's wife, Elvira Hancock [Scarface 1983].
> 
> 7) Hannibal isn't a cannibal in this fic. Technically, he didn't eat Elvira, Chilton did.
> 
> Please leave me kudos and reviews! Thank you!
> 
> A/N: Oh and guys, please refrain from calling Beverly a "bitch" or anything of that sort. Her choice is a parallel of Alana's choice not to pursue romantic relations with Will in the show. As a writer, I believe that she made an independent, intelligent choice to not let Will go because she doesn't want herself or Will hurt by Hannibal, so she readily informs Hannibal. (Alana in the show made an independent, intelligent choice for her own sake and Will's because a relationship would be very unwise to have and for Will to deal with while he's unstable.) All of them are bad men in this verse, and bad men break promises, hurtful as they are.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in the works for so long that I just want to get this done. If you can't tell, I have a specific weakness for younger Will, and since there's not much porn written of that and I decided I would try writing it and combine it with my favourite gangster movie trope. [So far, the only gay-themed mafia movie I've ever watched is "Friends & Family (2001)".] Hannibal isn't a cannibal in this fic, but that doesn't mean he is a good man at all. His character was never meant to be made good, which is awesome to work with.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this fic!
> 
> My tumblr is http://kawaiimerlin.tumblr.com


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